The Landron Guild
by Aquila Aqua
Summary: AU. The Ladrón Guild is the modern day Robin Hood as they rob the rich to feed the poor. But when they are framed for the murder of a corrupted politician, they have to race against time to prove their innocence while avoiding Special Agent Houjou Muraku of the FBI and his investigation team. Do Read and Review! Discontinued.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

* * *

 **Summery:**

The Ladrón Guild is the modern day Robin Hood as they rob the rich to feed the poor. But when they are framed for the murder of a corrupted politician, they have to race against time to prove their innocence while avoiding Special Agent Houjou Muraku of the FBI and his investigation team.

Characters:

Sena Arata (23) – The current leader after the previous one, Ban, retired. A former pro street racer and the getaway driver

Vanessa Gala (19) – Arata's step-sister and one of the members of the guild. Her main role is to infiltrate the target's place and steal the money if it is a simple job or seduce the targets to find out more of the whereabouts of the cash and security layout. Sometimes she joins Hikaru and Haruki in the heist job.

Honshihara Hikaru (23) – Arata's best friend since high school and former rival in street racing. His job is to break into the target's place with Haruki and sometimes act as the spare getaway driver

Honshihara Hikari (23) – Hikaru's twin sister and owner of a small café where the gang meets up. Although she is not part of the guild, she supports them from the side by providing them a place to meet up at her café and treats their injuries. Muraku is her frequent customer and she sometimes flirts with him.

Izumo Haruki (23) – Arata's best friend since high school. His job is to break into the target's place with Hikaru and a pro in cracking open safes.

Honsono Sakuya (19) – The band's hacker and mostly stays behind to disable the security and monitor the situation from the hideout

Kashima Yuno (21) – Arata's girlfriend and a professional in handling explosives and handles the distribution of the firearms used in each heist. She is the one who creates distractions for the heist and the getaways.

Mikhail Rouke (20) – The newest member of the band and is close to Vanessa. He is the backup member of the heists and steps in if needed.

Houjou Muraku (23) – A member of the FBI and Kageto's superior. He is a reformed street racer and once raced against Arata in high school and beat him, although Arata does not know the identity of the racer who beat him. He is a frequent customer of Hikari's café and enjoys having her flirt with him.

Kiba Kageto (22) – Muraku's technician and the one who is responsible for breaking into the Merry Band's computers

* * *

As soon as the red haired lady stepped into the ball room wearing a red, slightly revealing gown, her eyes became fixed on the host of the party and casually walked up to him.

"Busy evening for you, isn't it?" She asked seductively.

The host, a young man in his twenties, jumped and eyed her with a small smirk. "So it seems, how may I entertain a beautiful lady like you?"

"How about you step away from all these people and their stuffy political talks and accompany me outside for a moment?" She winked.

"Hm, I suppose I can leave my guest for a moment or two." The man said thoughtfully and gave her a knowing look. "Come with me, I know the perfect spot for us to…get acquainted with each other." He took her by the arm and led her out to a balcony across from the ballroom and closed the door behind them.

"You sure know the best places." She giggled and walked closer to him as though she wanted to kiss him. He got the idea and just when his face was just inches away from Vanessa's, a cable shot out from the ledge above the doors and shocked him unconscious.

The lady nimbly stepped away as he fell forward and gave the two people on the ledge a thumbs up. "Nice save."

"You were too convincing just now." Haruki remarked as he and Hikaru jumped down and tossed her a backpack.

"What can I say?" She shrugged as she pulled off her red wig and latex mask, revealing to be Vanessa. "I got to get his back turned on you or he would have seen you."

Hikaru on the other hand began searching the man's pockets and pulled out a plastic card. "I got it. Let's go."

"You guys go ahead." Vanessa said as she opened the balcony's doors. "I'm going to get changed and will meet you guys at the master bedroom."

"Take your time." Haruki grunted as she slipped into the nearest bathroom while he and Hikaru snuck downstairs and headed to a room with large doors. "Here is the safe room."

Hikaru flashed the card at the device on the wall and attached a device to it. "Sakuya, do your magic." He whispered into his ear comn

 _"Leave it to me."_

Instantly, the device began to break the code from Sakuya's computers and it took him less than five seconds to unlock the door. They slipped inside and began spraying the room with some sort of chemical to check for lasers. Soon enough, the entire area around the safe was surrounded with lasers shooting out from the floor.

"This will be tricky. But nothing we cannot handle." Haruki mused as he tapped several buttons on his gauntlet and it emitted a pulse that instantly shut down the lasers. He and Hikaru carefully made their way to the safe in case there is more traps and took out a pair of statoscopes from his bag and fiddled with the dial until it clicked unlock. Hikaru took his cue and opened up the safe. Inside, there was stacks and stacks of cash and Haruki and Hikaru stuffed them in their bags until all of it was taken.

"How in the word does he keep this much cash in his pockets?" Hikaru grunted as he hauled his now heavy bag out of the room and snuck back upstairs to the master bedroom where Vanessa, now dressed in a black suit, was waiting for them.

"About time." She joked. "I was beginning to think that you got caught."

"You're not the one hauling 2kg bags filled with cash around." Hikaru retorted as they entered the bedroom.

"Give it a break." Haruki hissed. "We have a job to do here. Vanessa?"

Vanessa opened up her backpack and pulled out a screwdriver and gave it to Haruki. He went over to the painting on the wall and pried it off with the screwdriver. When he managed to remove the painting, a small safe was revealed to be built into the wall. He pried opened it and began shifting around the jewelry inside until he found the gem that he was looking for. An emerald necklace with tiny diamond clusters on top and below it.

"I got it." Haruki told them and placed it in a box in Vanessa's backpack. Suddenly, the alarm sounded and the three of them jumped.

"I think our guy is already awake." Vanessa gulped.

"Come on!" Haruki led them to the window and they climbed up the drain pipe to the roof. Like cats, they ran across the roof all the way to the edge. Vanessa pulled out a grapping hook out of her bag and shot it at the wall surrounding the estate.

"Secure it." She told Haruki as she tossed the other end to him. He took it and tied it up to one of the prodding spikes decorating the roof and they glided over to the wall. It only took them two seconds to reach it and thirty seconds to climb down. A red car soon pulled up to them and they scrambled inside.

"Did you get the cash and the necklace?" The driver, Arata, asked and he resumed driving down the road at high speed.

"Yes." Haruki nodded as he passed his bag to Hikaru at the back.

 _"Arata, you got cops on your tail."_ Sakuya told him through the car's radio. _"About four of them."_

Arata made a tsking sound and stepped on the gas while veering around the road, causing the occupants of the car to be tossed around.

"Arata!" Vanessa yelled as she trying to stop herself from falling onto Hikaru as Arata made a sharp right into the highway.

"Relax! I've done this a hundred times." Arata yelled back. He suddenly pressed the breaks and swerved the car around and drove _towards_ the police cars.

"What are you doing!?" Vanessa yelled in shock.

"Trust me." Arata maneuvered the car such that the right side of the bumper will hit the police car on the right which made it swerve off course towards another police car and they collided. Arata then smashed the car against the one on his left and stepped in the gas. Again he swerved the car around and drove in his original direction with only one police car, which managed to avoid the chaos, chasing them.

"We have one more on our tail!" Hikaru told his friend.

"Let's see how he likes this then." Arata stepped on the gas harder and he knew that the police car had followed his suit. He smirked and abruptly moved his foot to the breaks. Instantly, the tires squealed as the car shot backwards, passing by the still speeding police car. As Arata moved his feet back to the gas and was about to crash into the back of the police car, it suddenly veered to the right, narrowly missing Arata's car. Arata gritted his teeth and tried to maneuver to the side of the police car but it merely moved closer and made the first move of crashing onto Arata's car, trying to push it off the road.

 _"Arata, forget about disabling that car. Yuno is five miles to the east. Lure it there and let her do the rest while you escape!"_ Sakuya told him.

"Fine." Arata said through gritted teeth and repositioned the car on his lane and sped off towards Yuno's direction. As expected, the other car followed but when Arata made a sharp turn, a grenade was thrown out of nowhere and the police car had to skid off the road to avoid the explosion.

"Thanks Yuno." Arata muttered as he watched his girlfriend drive off on her motorbike and followed behind her back to their hideout.

* * *

"This is the fifth time this month." The chief inspector muttered to himself as he climbed out of the car while watching the fire department put out the remaining flames from the explosion. "The Ladrón Guild is getting too daring."

"Sir." One of his subordinates saluted. "Got a message from the FBI back at the station. They said that they will be taking over the investigations of the Ladrón Guild."

"It's about time they did." The chief inspector sighed. "Tell them that I'm too willing to hand over the reins."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Just how many cars have we lost to them? And how many times have we failed to even get a single identity of one of them?" He groaned. "I'm tired of dealing with them. They can take care of them for all I care. I would rather sit down in the office with a cup of coffee and a doughnut in my hands than running around, trying to catch some thieves who can't be caught."

"Yes sir."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

* * *

In the Ladrón Guild's hideout somewhere at the outskirts of town, Sakuya had dumped all of the money into his custom made money counter and checked the results. It was so huge that he jumped and called for his friends who were celebrating at the bar, "Guys, we robbed about $800 thousand tonight!"

Arata was the first to arrive at the machine and checked the results himself. He could not stop the grin that was forming on his lips and turned to the rest of his friends that were gathered around. "Yosh, let's give half of it to the orphanage fund and the rest can go to our usual donations."

"I second that!" Vanessa raised the wineglass in her hands and the others followed her suit.

"Oh, and we have to return the emerald necklace to our client tomorrow." Arata suddenly remembered.

"Leave that to me." Haruki told him. "I will have it sent out to him first thing in the morning."

"Thanks." Arata said gratefully. "Yosh, let's continue the party!"

Everyone cheered at that and they went back to the bar. Later, the party died down and everyone went doing their personal things. Hikaru have gone back to check on his sister, Haruki and Sakuya were monitoring the news of their latest heist and Arata was working on the damages on his car. On the lady's side, Yuno was busy putting back her explosives, firearm and their gear into their own respective drawers; and Vanessa was checking their fan page on the net for possible recruits though the possibility of finding even a decent recruit was close to zero in her opinion.

"Hey guys, look at this!" Haruki called them over. Everyone dropped what they were doing and gathered around the television.

 _"With the most recent heist of the Landron Guild, the FBI has finally made their decision to take over the investigation and have dispatched one of their top operatives to arrest this band of ruthless thieves."_ The reporter of the news stated. _"With this, we can finally rest assure of the capture of…"_

"Hey!" Vanessa cried indignantly as Arata switched off the TV.

"There's no need to listen to her anymore since she already gave us what we need to know." Arata said casually. "Our business of stealing things back for their rightful owners is not open to public and not to mention, the fact that we are the modern Robin Hood is not supposed to be found out. Let them call us whatever they want. Haruki, Sakuya, focus on finding out who is this top operative instead. There's no need to listen to the news anymore."

"Alright, we'll get to it." Sakuya nodded. "But it will be tricky to hack into the FBI without letting them trace us back to this place."

"Just do what you can but pull back if you think that they'll do that." Arata told him and turned to Vanessa. "Any recruits worth considering?"

"You'll be surprise to know that one of them caught my eye." Vanessa said with a smirk. They went over to her computer while the others went back to what they were doing earlier. "I did as you asked and ran a scan on the applicants. As usual, many of them made up their police records and more than half of them are fake applications, no doubt planted by various government agencies. So the number has dropped down by a lot. Only five applicants are genuine but this particular one seems interesting."

"Let's see our lucky guy then." Arata smirked as Vanessa brought up a profile up on the screen. "Mikhail Rourke…"

"He has several records of various break-ins in his teens." Vanessa showed him the records.

"Nearly all of our genuine applicants have this too." Arata pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

"But look at this." Vanessa pointed and the lower part where the 'other skills' category was. "He has a fifth degree black belt in karate and can use a gun. I checked on this and it is definitely true."

"I see. Set up and meeting for him to meet you for an interview tomorrow morning at Hikari's café then we'll test him with a trial." Arata told her as he straightened up.

"Wait, me?" Vanessa said in surprise.

"You're the seducer, you'll think of something." Arata said with a small smirk as he pecked her on the cheek.

"You know I hate that title." Vanessa muttered as he went over to Yuno and whispered something about seeing a movie which she immediately agreed. "Whatever, I'll do it." She said with a roll of her eyes and sent an email to Mikhail.

* * *

"You again?" Hikari said with an amused smile as Muraku sat down at his usual seat.

He flashed her a smile and picked up the menu. "Is there anything new on the menu?"

"The last time you asked that, it was the tuna sandwich and you said that it was too dry. Now that it is hash brown, you'll definitely say that it is too flaky." Hikari said with a roll of her eyes.

"I'll take the hash brown and my usual then." Muraku said with a smirk.

"Give me a minute." Hikari flipped close her notebook and went to the kitchen to get the meal.

Not too long later, Vanessa stepped inside the café and went over to the counter just as Hikari came out with Muraku's breakfast.

"He's here again?" Vanessa whispered into her ear with a knowing smile.

"Yeah." Hikari nodded back with a small blush and delivered the meal to Muraku. Once she was done, she came back to the counter and raised an eyebrow at Vanessa. "Is there anything that you need?"

"Nope, just to let you know that I'll be in the back room and if anyone asks for me, send them there." Vanessa told her.

Hikari nodded in understanding and gave her the keys to the back room. It was barely fifteen minutes later when Mikhail stepped into the café.

"Welcome." Hikari came over with a menu on her hands but he shook his head.

"I'm looking for a Vanessa Gala. She sent me an email, telling me to ask for her when I arrive here."

"She's in the back room." Hikari jerked her thumb at the back.

"Thanks." Mikhail inclined his head and went over to the said room with Muraku watching him very closely.

He quickly finished up his coffee and called for Hikari over. "Thanks for the meal." He said and places some money on the table.

"You overpaid." Hikari called after him as she picked it up.

"Consider the extra as a tip. Oh, and the hash brown is indeed flaky." He called back and left.

"Really." Hikari said with a shake of her head but there was a smile on her lips.

* * *

"Mikhail Rourke?" Vanessa perked her head up from the folder she was reading when he came in.

"Yes." Mikhail nodded and sat down across from her. "So, I take it that you have seen my application on your fan page?"

"Yes, and you should be considered lucky since I considered you out of the many applicants." Vanessa said with a smirk, not bothering to mention that only five out of the hundreds they received that week were real. "This is just an informal interview before letting you take a trial to prove your worth. My leader will consider then if you can join the Landron Guild." She dropped the folder she was reading on the table and looked at him carefully. "You have several break-in records in your teens, any comments on that?"

"They were mostly dares on my friends' part and I didn't really steal anything in particular. Just a nail clipper or things that are easily forgotten about." Mikhail shrugged.

"I see." Vanessa twirled a loose strand of hair that fell out of her ponytail. "And the police did not have a thing on you until your fourth break in."

"That was only because a _friend_ of mine tipped them off." Mikhail scoffed.

"Alright, moving on." Vanessa shifted the folder and glanced up at him. "I'm impress that you have a fifth degree black belt in karate and also know how to use a gun."

"Yeah. I was actually living in a bad part of LA when I was younger so I had to learn how to defend myself." He said truthfully.

Vanessa observed him carefully for any signs of lies and folded her hands on the table. "I believe that is all and I would like to ask you one question. What is the reason you want to join the Landron Guild?"

Mikhail contemplated on this question for a while and spoke. "I have been following your heists for a while and I am amazed as to how you are able to carry out those complicated heists. And, I want to be part of it because I want to experience something more than simple thievery."

Vanessa raised an eyebrow and shut her folder. "I see. When then, here." She reached into her bag and took out another folder. "This will be our next heist. But I have discussed this with my leader and he agreed that we can use this as a trial for you. If you succeed without being caught, he will consider letting you join."

"You're not afraid that I would give this to the cops or screw up, aren't you?" Mikhail smirked.

Vanessa tilted her head and tapped her finger on her chin as she pretended to think. "We have our ways. You won't be the first interviewee to ask so and let me tell you, all those who really tried to sell us out…let's just say they didn't meet a very happy end."

She nearly laughed at Mikhail's pale face and waved her hand. "I'm just joking. Let's just say that none of them have any memories of their interview or of their heist. We aren't that cruel as to kill anyone."

Mikhail visibly relaxed and gave her a twisted smile. "You just had to scare me."

"Sorry, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up." Vanessa grinned. "And your face was priceless."

Mikhail threw her a glare but Vanessa waved it off. "By the way, my name is Vanessa. I had a good talk with you. If you want to see me again, pass the trial and earn my leader's approval."

Vanessa cocked her head and offered him an encouraging smile before leaving the room.

"Pass the trials, huh?" Mikhail mused as he opened the folder and took in the details. "And she is Vanessa…" He smirked and snapped the folder shut. "Things should get interesting now."

* * *

"You're done with the back room?" Hikari asked when Vanessa emerged.

"Yeah, but our guy is still inside. Here's the key though." Vanessa said and handed her the keys to the back room.

"Why are you recruiting more people anyway?" Hikari asked in a low voice. "I though you have more than enough people in the guild now."

"Apparently, Haruki is going to temporary move back to Japan soon since his mother's illness is getting worse, so we need to have someone to replace him until then." Vanessa whispered back. "But so far, we haven't got a safecracker yet. But this guy seems promising."

"Oh, give my condolences to Haruki for me. And," Hikari gained a mischievous smile and leaned in, "I think you picked him because he's hot."

Vanessa blushed and lightly hit her arm. "No, I did not!"

"Alright, alright." Hikari held her hands up to calm her friend down. "I was just joking but you cannot deny that he's hot though."

"Maybe." Vanessa said and turned her head away so that Hikari would not see her blush darkening. "Anyway, I'm heading off now. I'll see you soon." Vanessa waved as she left the café.

Hikari smiled as she watched her friend leave and continued to serve her customers, unaware that Muraku was watching her from outside.

* * *

 **Please review and tell me what do you think. about it.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!**

* * *

Two weeks later, Arata and Hikaru were in their respective cars with Vanessa and Haruki in Arata's while Yuno was in Hikaru's. They were parked at opposite ends of the street across the office which was supposed to be their next heist but became Mikhail's trial instead.

"How sure are you that he can pull it off?" Yuno wondered to Hikaru.

"I don't know." Hikaru said with his eyes closed. "But I don't think we should trust him that easily. I read his application and it is too good to be true that he can have four break-ins and not be found out until his friend split on him."

"I have to admit that I agree with that." Yuno hung her head. "Normally, you would make two or three mistakes if you are an amateur and will therefore be soughed out easily. I heard that you and Arata had several close calls on several occasions too when the both of you first started breaking into those target mansions."

"Yeah." Hikaru nodded. "That's why, I'm not too sure that this 'Mikhail Rourke' could be actually trusted at all."

"Maybe, but I trust Vanessa's judgement." Yuno smiled.

Hikaru glanced at her and then out at the street. He narrowed his eyes when he spotted Mikhail. "He's here. Let Vanessa know."

"Already doing that." Yuno smirked as she radioed over to Arata's car. "The challenger is here."

 _"Got that, over and out."_ Arata replied. Soon, they saw Vanessa heading over to Mikhail and bumped him as she walked past him. They exchanged a few words and went off in their own directions. A few minutes later, Vanessa jumped back into Arata's car.

"It's time." Hikaru said grimly and switched on the screen built into the dashboard where the feed from the cameras on Mikhail would broadcast on. The same feed would be shown on Arata's car and at HQ where Sakuya was.

* * *

Let's jump back a few minutes where Vanessa bumped into Mikhail…

"Oh, sorry." Vanessa quickly apologized when she bumped into Mikhail, slipping a micro camera and mic into his pocket.

"It's alright…Vanessa?" Mikhail quirked his eyebrow. "Why are you here?"

"Giving you some last minute instructions." Vanessa whispered with a wink. "You have a camera and mic in your pocket now. Clip them onto your shirt so that we can watch you in action. Oh, and by the way, the safe code is 3893 by the way."

Mikhail nodded as he digested this information. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Vanessa nodded back and headed down the street. Mikhail watched her for a few seconds and turned into the alley that would lead him behind the office building where he had kept his tools for that day earlier.

Not too long later, he stepped out of the shadows wearing an all-black suit with a mask hanging out of his pocket. Using the fire escape besides the building, he managed to climb up to the fourth floor where the office was without any problems.

* * *

"He's smart." Arata observed. "If he had gone for the front or back door, his face would have been caught on camera or people would see him. But the fire escape has no security cameras and it is barely guarded at all."

"But it is the inside that is the challenge." Haruki spoke up, not looking up from the screen. "If he wants to be my replacement, he is going to need to prove himself in more ways than one."

"I know that he will." Vanessa said determinedly.

Arata raised a curious eyebrow at that. "How?"

"I simply do." Vanessa shrugged.

Alarms went off in Arata's brain. It was not every day his step-sister fell for boys, in fact, the last boyfriend she had was about two years ago and they did not break up on the best terms since she found out that he was cheating on her (Arata had his revenge on him later when he uploaded super embarrassing photos of him and his new girlfriend online, not that anyone knew about it). But now, Vanessa was taking interest in this…new guy! He was beginning to regret agreeing to Vanessa's suggestion to test Mikhail.

"Arata, he's inside." Haruki snapped him out of his silent fuming.

Arata blinked and focused on the screen, berating himself for getting distracted. Mikhail had already entered the building but the office was located on the other side of the building.

"We're going to find out soon exactly how he is going to get there without being caught by twenty guards, two lasers and a dozen cameras." Arata smirked.

* * *

Mikhail had no problem getting inside but he knew based on the folder Vanessa gave him that getting to the office was easier said than done.

'But,' He smirked. 'This is what I trained for. I'll get into the Landron Guild for sure! Based on the map Vanessa gave me, the only place I can use to get into the office…would be the air ducts!' He glanced up and smirked. True enough, the closest vent was just above him. Using his tools, he managed to dislodge the covering and climbed in, replacing the covering just as a patrol came by.

"That was close." He said softly as he wiped his brow. Based on his memory, the way to the office was just down that duct. 'Then I better get going.' He told himself and crawled down the duct. He soon arrived at the office and climbed down, careful not to make any noise.

'The safe is at the other side of the office and I still have a few obstacles to overcome.' He thought grimly and prodded around the office to look for the safe. But thankfully, it was kept in the corner of the main room so it was not too hard for him to find it.

'And the passcode is 3893 based on what Vanessa told me.' He silently inputted the numbers and it cracked open, revealing the cash inside it. He quickly stuff all of it into his bag before heading out the same way he came in.

* * *

"Smart, real smart." Arata shook his head an hour later when Mikhail emerged out of the building with the cash stolen in his bag pack. "I can't believe he used the air vents."

"I think it is time we collected him. Vanessa?" Haruki tilted her head at her.

"On it." Vanessa nodded as she fixed her cap and climbed out of the car. Mikhail soon spotted her as she came over and gave her a curt nod which she returned.

As she got closer, she whispered into his ear, "The leader wants to see you."

Mikhail raised an eyebrow. "Does this mean that I passed?"

"I don't know." Vanessa shrugged and Mikhail sweatdropped, giving her a look that said 'seriously?'. Vanessa rolled her eyes and grabbed his arms. "I'm just doing what he told me to do. Come on."

As she led him back to the car, sirens sounded around the corner and she cursed under her breath. Touching her ear comn, she yelled, "We got trouble! Code Red!"

 _"Vanessa, you have to get to Hikaru's car."_ Sakuya told her. _"If Arata does not get away now, he'll be caught."_

"Got it." Vanessa turned off the ear comn and ran in the opposite direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Arata's car driving off away from the sirens.

"Where are we going?" Mikhail asked as he kept up with her.

"You'll see." She simply said and they ran all the way to the opposite end of the street with the cars turning into the street.

"Those aren't ordinary police cars." Mikhail realized with narrow eyes. "I recognize them. They're from the FBI!"

"What?!" Vanessa risked turning around and indeed saw that they were FBI cars. "Step on it!"

"I am!" Mikhail snapped back.

"Freeze!"

Vanessa tilted her head but quickly ducked away, pulling her cap lower. 'Him!? How could this be?!'

"Vanessa?" Mikhail asked quizzically.

"Just keep going." She urged him, pulling a gun out from her coat and shot at the FBI agent at their tail, Houjou Muraku. He instantly fired back which made Vanessa run faster.

"Where are we going anyway!?" Mikhail gasped out.

Vanessa scanned the area and spotted Hikaru's car and pointed at it. "Over there."

Mikhail nodded and slipped his own gun out of his sleeves (Vanessa is surprise that he hid it in there) and shot behind him without actually looking behind which slowed Muraku down, giving them an amply of time to dive into Hikaru's car. To ensure that the FBI cars won't follow them, Yuno fired her gun outside at the tires of the leading cars.

"That was a close one." Vanessa gasped, yanking her cap off.

"Yeah, but we're not out of the zone yet." Hikaru frowned as he spotted through the rear mirror that Muraku had jumped into one of the still functioning cars and chase after them. "Hang on!"

Vanessa risked a glance back and frowned. No matter how many turns or cuts Hikaru made, Muraku managed to keep up with him. What's more, she recognized its movements since she seen it all the time when Arata and Hikaru were in their street racing days. "Um Hikaru, I think this driver is also a street racer."

"I know that." Hikaru said through gritted teeth.

"Arata, where are you?" Yuno asked through the radio.

 _"We're_ coming _in to your position at two o'clock."_ Arata told them. _"Just keep going at this pace. Yuno, please prepare a stun grenade."_

"Eh?" Yuno raised an eyebrow but dug through her bag for the said item. "I got it here."

 _"Good. When I give the signal, throw it to me through the window."_

"Gotcha."

"I don't mean to interrupt, but he's catching up." Mikhail spoke up.

"Well, he's not going to get ten meters close to us, that's for sure." Hikaru muttered under his breath. Soon enough, Arata's car cut in between Hikaru and Muraku's, causing the latter to come to a halt while Hikaru spun his car 90o to face the passenger side of the car where Haruki was waiting.

 _"Yuno, now!"_

With a flick of her wrist, Yuno tossed the stun grenade at Haruki who caught it and passed it to Arata as he exited the car with Muraku doing the same, pulling his cap low.

"Get out of my way." Muraku warned him as he aimed his gun at him.

"No can do." Arata smirked and subtlety dropped the stun grenade and nudged it with his foot to the side.

Muraku frowned and rounded around his car, only to step on the stun grenade. He realized his mistake too late and barely managed to roll away as it emitted a pulse which encased the car. Taking the advantage of the distraction, Arata hopped back into his car and both he and Hikaru drove away from the scene.

Muraku picked himself up as he watched them go, not bothering to get back into the car, knowing that they took it out with that stun grenade.

"Sir, are you alright?" One of the agents asked once the rest of the agents caught up with him.

"I'm alright." He nodded. "Did you managed to get a look at the license plate of both cars?"

"Unfortunately, it was too dark for us to see." The agent said apologetically.

"I see." Muraku closed his eyes for a moment and opened them. "We can only hope that our mole gives us more information soon. Get me Kageto on the line."

"Yes sir." The agent bowed and left. He soon returned with a laptop with Kageto's face showing on the screen. Muraku took it with a thankful nod and dismissed him.

"Kageto, I want you to investigate the company that the Landron Guild stole from." He told his tech. "I don't believe that they would simply pick it just for the money."

 _"I'm on it."_ Kageto nodded and went off screen for fifteen minutes while Muraku waited. His patience was rewarded when Kageto returned with a grim look. _"I checked up on the company like you asked and I found out that it is under suspicion for funding illegal weapons manufacturing."_

"I see." Muraku said thoughtfully. "We'll wait for our underground agent to check in before taking any action."

 _"Muraku, out of curiosity, why did you send him there?"_ Kageto asked quizzically.

"He is the right person for the job." Muraku said shortly. "I will be a bit late tomorrow just so you know. Oh, and can you check on the next street race in LA tomorrow?"

* * *

"That was extremely close." Arata sighed in relief once he and Hikaru drove into their hideout and got out.

"I think that FBI agent must be the one we heard on the news after our last heist." Haruki said thoughtfully.

"He is." Sakuya said as he came over to them with a folder. "I finally managed to find out more of the special agent. Here's his file."

"Thanks." Arata nodded as he took it. He turned his attention to Mikhail who squirmed under his gaze. Arata silently walked over with a glare as he looked over him. The glare dropped into a smirk once he got in front of him. "Well, you were very cleaver to utilize your surroundings to your advantage." He turned his head to Hikaru and nodded. Hikaru then took out the bag containing the loot and opened it up. Once he was satisfied, Arata turned his gaze back to Mikhail. "If I were to let you keep the loot of this round, what would you do with it?"

"I don't know." Mikhail shook his head. "I have never thought of having this much cash on hand, but I'll probably save it for the future?"

Arata chuckled and patted his shoulder. "Not the answer I wanted but it's better than what others would say. Welcome to the guild." He grabbed the bag from Hikaru and tossed it at Sakuya. "Count the money and place it into our usual funds."

Sakuya nodded and left the garage. Haruki observed Mikhail for a moment and followed his friend up to the lounge.

"So, I'll be going now." Mikhail said politely and made his way to the door when Arata stopped him.

"Just so that you know, I hate people who double cross the guild. If you do, your name will be blacklisted among us and we will never forgive you nor will we hesitate to take you down in the streets."

Mikhail kept a neutral look and nodded. "Fine by me."

Once he left, Vanessa gave Arata a frown. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing." Arata shook his head and snapped open the folder in his hands. "More importantly, Vanessa, you knew that FBI agent, didn't you?"

All eyes landed on Vanessa as she bit her lip. "The FBI agent is a regular at Hikari's café. But we didn't think once that he was a FBI agent."

"I see." Arata nodded and read the file. "Hikaru, do you remember from our street racing days, there was a terrifying racer also known as the Violet Devil?"

"Altogether too well." Hikaru said grimly. "You once challenged him and lost, didn't you?"

"Yeah. It was because of that lost I remember his style too. And I saw it again today."

"Wait, are you saying that the special FBI agent was the Violet Devil?" Yuno said in disbelieve.

"That would make sense. He was driving as though he was in a street race." Vanessa said thoughtfully.

"So what are we going to do about him and what should I tell Hikari about him for the matter?" Hikaru frowned.

"Well, you could tell her about him and have her keep an eye on him when he's at her café." Arata said as he closed the folder. "As for the FBI agent, Houjou Muraku, I am going to find out more about him."

"How are you going to do that?" Yuno frowned.

Vanessa's thoughtful face morphed into a worried look as she realized what he was thinking of doing. "Don't tell me…you're going to the street race!"

"Yeah. I'm going to ask Kazu about the next race. Don't bother to look for me tomorrow." Arata said, waving the folder at them and left the hideout.

"…I hope he stays safe. It has been years since he entered a street race and he has been out of practice." Yuno said with a worried frown.

"Yuno, Arata is one of the best racers I've encountered." Hikaru spoke up. "I trust that he will find something."

"I hope so." Vanessa said with a grim frown. 'Be careful, Arata.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

Once changed, Vanessa got into her car and drove back to her shared house with Arata, though to be honest, it was more like her own house since Arata spends most of his time at Yuno's house. But to her surprise when she got back that night, the lights were turned on with the stereo on blast.

"What in the world…" Vanessa stormed out of the car and unlocked the door. "If he's throwing a party again…"

But when she threw the door, she was surprise to see the former guild leader, Ban, and Arata chatting over a bottle of wine.

"Vanessa, you're back." Arata greeted her.

"What's going on?" Vanessa demanded as she tossed her keys on the counter.

"Well, I came here to see how the both of you are since I heard that the FBI agent was on your tail and I owed Arata a glass of wine." Ban shrugged. "Want a glass?"

"No thanks." Vanessa grunted and switched off the stereo. "And what's with turning this on at full blast?"

"Sorry, I wanted to drown down Mr. Kenzie's snores while we talk." Arata said and turned back on the stereo, causing Vanessa to glare at him.

"Well, so what about this FBI agent I heard?" Ban intervened before they could get into an argument.

"He's the regular customer at Hikari's place, a special agent and the Violet Devil of the track." Arata ticked off his fingers.

"The Violet Devil?" Ban raised an eyebrow. "You mean the one who defeated you all those years ago?"

"Yeah." Arata nodded in confirmation. "So, I was thinking that I'll find the next race tomorrow and try to find more information about Houjou Muraku through the races."

"I figured so when Kazu called me."

"So, can I come along?" Vanessa spoke up.

"No." Arata shook his head.

"Why?" Vanessa frowned. "I've been to all of your races before. What's different from this one?"

"We were teenagers back then." Arata pointed out. "I've been to adult's race before. There's no way you would want to be there when you see it."

"Arata's right Vanessa." Ban cut in before Vanessa could protest. "I've seen Kazu's races before and the conditions of the places…and I don't think that you, let alone Yuno would be safe there."

Vanessa pouted but got the unspoken message. "Fine, I'll be hanging out at Hikari's café then."

* * *

The next morning, Hikari glanced up as Muraku came into her café but was high on alert. Once Hikaru had informed her that Muraku was the FBI agent on their tail, she needed to be more careful when speaking with him. Armed with her notebook and pen, she flashed a smile at him as he sat down at his table. "Do I need to guess what you want to order today, or will you be having your usual?"

"Why don't you try and guess?" Muraku suggested with a coy smile.

Hikari tapped her pen on the notebook as she tried to think. "Would it be…the egg and sausage special?"

"Close."

Hikari unconsciously tapped her pen again as she guessed, "The egg sandwich meal set?"

"Maybe tomorrow." Muraku shrugged.

"I give up." Hikari sighed.

"All I want is coffee with the ham and sausage special." He chuckled.

"You could have said that earlier." Hikari rolled her eyes as she wrote down the order on her notebook.

"So, does your brother come here often?" Muraku asked.

"Not really." Hikari shook her head.

"Pity, I wanted to talk to him."

"About what?" Hikari asked, trying to keep her voice leveled.

"If I'm not mistaken, he was once a street racer like me back at high school. I was hoping that he would be able to give me some information of a certain racer." Muraku said nonchalantly.

"I didn't know that you were a street racer." Hikari said with a small smile. "But they must be dangerous too. I remember watching one of Hikaru's racers once and I stayed away from the rest after that. It's too intense."

"I take it that you don't like street racing."

"Not really, but I couldn't stop my brother once he set his heart on participating in street racers though he stopped now, thankfully." She flipped her notebook close and headed to the kitchen. "I'll be back in a minute."

Muraku watched her as she entered the kitchen and looked around. It was a slow day for the café as there was no one other than him. But that changed when Vanessa stormed in grumpily and sat down at the counter. Hikari poked her head out of the kitchen and chatted with her a bit before heading back inside. When her gaze drifted to him, she quickly ducked her head and buried it in the book she pulled out of her handbag.

'Strange.' Muraku thought with a frown at Vanessa's weird behavior.

The door opened again and Mikhail stepped inside. He paused when he saw Vanessa and headed over to her side. "Hey."

Vanessa jumped and dropped her book. "Mikhail, what are you doing here?"

"Well, since I never actually tried the food here the last time I can, I decided that I should try after last night."

Vanessa relaxed somewhat and picked up her book. "I see. Well, I've been here many times before so I can recommend a few things from the menu."

"Thanks." Mikhail nodded. "Are you free today?"

"Yeah, why?" Vanessa cocked her eyebrow.

"I was hoping that you would hang out with me so that we can get to know each other, given we are teammates and all." He shrugged.

"Well, I certainly have nothing much to do given that Arata is out of town. So, sure." Vanessa smirked.

Mikhail raised an eyebrow. "Arata?"

"The leader." She said in a low voice. "He's my step-brother by the way."

"Unless you told me that he's your step-brother, I would not have thought so." Mikhail chuckled.

"I get that a lot." Vanessa smiled wryly. "My mother married his father when I was 8. Since it would have been weird for me to take on a Japanese surname, I kept my father's."

"So where are they?"

"Car accident 6 years ago." Vanessa said distantly.

"Sorry."

"It's fine. I got over it a long time ago. Once Arata turned 18, he pulled me out of the foster care system and became my legal guardian." Vanessa shrugged and they fell into an awkward silence.

Hikari then burst out of the kitchen with a tray and went over to Muraku's table. "Here you go. One ham and sausage special."

"Thanks." Muraku nodded at her and began eating.

Hikari went over to the counter and turned to Mikhail. "Do you want anything this time?"

"Yeah." Mikhail nodded and sat at the closest table. "Can I have a menu?"

"Sure." Hikari passed him a menu and turned to Vanessa. "Coffee?"

"Thanks." Vanessa nodded and Hikari got her a cup. She peaked over Mikhail's shoulder and pointed at one of the meal sets. "I would recommend that you get this one."

Mikhail cocked his head at her and shrugged. "I'll trust your judgement on this one." He gave the menu back to Hikari and gave his order. She disappeared back into the kitchen and Vanessa sat down across from him.

"What do you usually do when you have a free day?" Mikhail asked, wanting to strike up a conversation.

"Just hang out here. The food is good." Vanessa tilted her head at the kitchen where Hikari was. "The owner knows about us so we often hang out here although I come here more often than the others."

"What's the food like?"

"Heavenly." She smirked. "So you asked me to hang out with you just now, any plans for that?"

"I don't know actually." He said sheepishly. "Maybe we could walk around town and then head to the park. I heard that there will be an event there."

"Sounds good to me." Vanessa grinned. "I have to go back and run a few errands though. I'll see you at the park at two."

"Great." Mikhail smiled back.

A man in a black jacket and hood then walked into the café as Hikari came out of the kitchen. Instantly, Muraku became high on alert as the man reached into his jacket to take something out. His hand reached for his gun which was hidden in his holster, concealed by his coat. Just as he suspected, the man pulled out a knife and pointed it at Hikari while grabbing her wrist. "Give me all your cash!"

Hikari screamed as he gripped her wrist tighter and Vanessa and Mikhail jumped immediately, uncertain of what to do. Muraku on the other hand pulled out his gun, pointing it at the man. "Put that knife down and let her go!"

The man was certainly shock that Muraku was a FBI agent but he was not about to give up. "I don't think so!" He pulled Hikari's wrist hard and she stumbled closer to the knife. "Put that gun down or she gets it!"

"Not on my watch."

The next thing the man knew, a hand grabbed the one holding Hikari's wrist and twisted it very hard until he released his grip. Hikari quickly scrambled back and her eyes became wide at the man's assailant. "Vanessa…"

The man swung his hand holding the knife at her but Mikhail caught it and knocked the knife out of his hands. Muraku lowered his gun and kept it, relieve that he did not have to use it.

"Hikari, call the police." Vanessa growled as Mikhail pinned down the man on the counter.

Hikari nodded and fumbled for the phone when Muraku placed a hand on hers. "I'll call them."

She jumped but nodded thankfully. "Thanks."

It was not long before the police came and took the robber away. Once they left, Hikari turned to Vanessa and Mikhail, bowing. "Thanks a lot for saving me back there."

"No worries." Vanessa hugged her tightly. "I have to go now. I'll see you later Mikhail."

"Alright." Mikhail nodded and turned to Hikari. "Can I pay for my meal now?"

"It's on the house." Hikari smiled.

"But…"

"When I say it is on the house, it is on the house." Hikari's smile waned. "And if you try to pay me, I'll simply throw it out the window. The same goes for you, Muraku."

Mikhail and Muraku were slightly taken aback by her words but something in her tone told them that there was no arguing with her.

"Alright. Thanks a lot for the meal." Mikhail slowly nodded and left too.

"If you insist." Muraku relented and glanced at his watch. "I have to go now or I will be late for work. I'll see you tomorrow."

"So, egg sandwich meal set tomorrow?"

Muraku glanced back and smirked. "Yeah."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

"So this is the location of the next race." Kazu said and gave Arata a folder when he came to his office that morning.

Arata flipped open the folder and quickly scanned through it. "Middle Grove huh? And it's tonight…"

"You sure that you can get ready in time?" Kazu asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yup." Arata nodded as he closed the folder. "Thanks for helping me out on this. I owe you one."

"Arata, you have to be careful out there." Kazu told him seriously. "These races are not like the ones that you entered in high school. Also, if you are looking for the Violet Devil there, you can be sure that he will be looking for you too."

"I'll keep that in mind." Arata promised and left the office. As soon as he arrived back at the hideout, he headed down to the garage and pulled back the sheet off one of the cars, revealing a shiny red car underneath.

"I was wondering if you would ever drive it again." Hikaru said as he stepped down into the garage.

"Brings back those memories of our high school days, doesn't it?" Arata smirked.

"Some that I would rather forget." Hikaru rolled his eyes. "Are you sure that it's still functional?"

"One way to find out."

* * *

It was late evening when Arata drove his car to Middle Grove where the street race was located at. There were many people there and one he would rather not see. Houjou Muraku was also there with his own black car and someone whom Arata assumed was his friend doing some lasting minute checking on the car.

He pulled up next to them and figured he should have taken Kazu's warning more seriously. A tap on his window made him look up and wind down the window. "May I help you?"

"I can't help but notice that your car looks very familiar." Muraku said casually as he leaned on his car.

"Well, it would definitely stand out years ago when street racing among teens was popular." Arata flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. "I do remember that in my last race though, there was a racer called the Violet Devil."

Instantly, Muraku tensed when he heard that name and Arata continued, "He delivered me my first and only lost in street racing. But it is because of that, I remember his style very clearly."

"Really?" Muraku said in a leveled voice but the gears were turning in his head, trying to remember when he ever raced someone in this car when it struck him. He remembered that he once challenged the second fastest racer within the area to a race. He had been driving a car like this one and was good enough to almost beat him.

"Houjou Muraku, Sena Arata." The host of the race suddenly walked over to their cars. "It's an honor to have the infamous Violet Devil and Rookie Racer on my grounds."

Neither Muraku nor Arata knew how to response to this but the host was now talking to some of the racers and they seemed disgruntled about something and shot dirty looks at them once the host walked away.

"What just happened?" Kageto wondered out loud as he shifted over to Muraku's side.

"I think we are about to find out." He answered, tilting his head at the host who now had a mic in his hands.

"Good evening to all of you racers and spectators!" He yelled into his mic. "It seems that today, we have two special guest coming in high regards by our main sponsor, Aoshima Kazuya! The Violet Devil and Rookie Racer! Tonight, the both of them will be joining the race along with our stars!"

There were boos and cheers at that and Arata and Muraku exchanged wry smiles.

"I guess we better prove our worth then." Arata said mildly. "I think there are a bunch of people here who think that the former high school racers won't hold a candle to them."

"My thoughts exactly." Muraku said just as mildly and got into his car. They drove their cars to the starting line and waiting. Beside them, several cars pulled over and started jeering at them.

"Muraku, before we start, why don't we make a bet?" Arata suggested out of the blue.

"What bet?" Muraku raised an eyebrow.

"If you win, I'll tell you who the leader of the Landron Guild is." Arata smirked.

Muraku stared at him in shock and carefully asked. "And if you win?"

"You'll have to drop their case."

Muraku stared ahead at the road as he prepped his gear and stepped on the accelerator. "Deal."

"Ready, get set, go!" The host yelled. Instantly all the cars shot off.

Unsurprisingly, Arata and Muraku managed to cleverly maneuver themselves around some of the cars that were falling behind and ended up being five of the cars in front.

"Tsk, those brats managed to catch up." The driver in front growled and pushed a button on his dashboard. The pipes on the side then ignited and spat out fire and the car went faster. At the same time, several spike balls were released from the boot.

Behind, Arata's eyes became wide in disbelief as he swerved to avoid them. "When Kazu said that the races here were different, he didn't warn me that it will be full of dirty racers." He muttered under his breath. Luckily, none of his tires touched the spikes but he could tell that some of them had not been lucky and their tires were badly punctured, causing them to lose control of their cars. But Muraku had managed to keep up and avoid getting his tire punctured. Now, they were just behind the car in front.

"I can't lose!" The first driver cried and slammed his car against Arata's.

"Jezz, and I just redid the paint job two months ago." Arata groaned as he straightened his car and slammed right back. Unexpectedly, Muraku did the same and forced him off the road, causing the car to overturn to the side. Now, it was the two of the competing to reach the finishing line first.

"Deja vu." Muraku muttered. "The last time we raced against each other, we were racing for the finishing line too. It was my last race too before I decided to turn over a new leaf. Sena Arata, you were the first one ever to come close to beating me."

The two cars sped up with one car pulling ahead only for the other to soon follow. But as they got close to the finishing line, they stepped on their gas pedals at the same time and the both of the cars pulled ahead to the finishing line at the same time.

"Oh my goodness!" The host exclaimed. "I've never seen a close match like them before! It's a draw for this round!"

Muraku sighed as Kageto came over and got into the passenger seat. "I guess neither of us win the bet then."

"What bet?" Kageto asked curiously.

"We made a bet before the race started. If I won, he would tell me who the leader of the Landron Guild is. On the other hand, if he won, I had to drop the investigation on the guild." Muraku explained.

"What? So he is somehow associated with the guild?"

Muraku turned his head to the direction of Arata's car and nodded. "I think so. But, I don't want to bother about it anymore tonight. The race was exhausting and I want to go back home now. Besides, it was not for nothing. I got a name that we can pursue."

"If you say so." Kageto nodded.

"We got cops heading our way!" Someone yelled outside.

"We better get out of here now." Muraku muttered as chaos erupted as people began driving away from the scene. He quickly drove it down the lane down to the town and headed to a warehouse that the FBI owned. As soon as he parked the car, he and Kageto got out.

"Kageto, can you go on ahead first?" Muraku asked him. "There is something I need to check on."

"Fine. I'll grab a cab." Kageto sighed. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Muraku watched his friend leave the warehouse and checked the tires. Just as he suspected, there was a small puncture in the tire and air was leaking out. He did not notice it until they were getting away from the cops.

'I didn't avoid those spike balls completely as I originally thought.' Muraku thought as he stood up. 'Had I not gotten it, I would have probably won.'

He grabbed his jacket from the car and locked it, making a mental note to have someone come and get it tomorrow. But he did not walk away from the warehouse by a block when a red car pulled up next to him.

"Where are you going?" Arata asked as he stuck his head out.

"Walking back." Muraku shrugged.

"Your car got a puncture?" Arata guessed with a smirk.

"You noticed?" Muraku sighed.

"It's hard not to." Arata shrugged. "Your car was tilting just now when we were getting away from the cops. By the way, since our race ended up as a tie, I suppose neither of us win the bet."

"I suppose so." Muraku nodded and narrowed his eyes. "Care to tell me what is your connection with the Landron Guild and how did you know that I'm the FBI agent on their case?"

"Well, to answer that would be breaking our bet." Arata smirked. "You can't arrest me now since you don't have any prove that I'm actually involved, can you?"

Muraku stared at him for a while and smirked. "No, but I would rather catch you in action than based on evidence, Sena Arata, or should I say, Landron Guild's leader?"

"I'll look forward to that. Good night." Arata gave him a curt nod and drove off.

Muraku placed his hands in his pockets and smirked. "Sena Arata, the Rookie Racer. Who would have known that we would be playing cat and mouse after being opposing racers on the track? I guess this is what they call fate."

* * *

 **Sorry if the races seems lame. I don't have any experience in describing these things so if you want to have at least an idea of how it would look like, watch the Fast & Furious movies.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

"I wonder if he is safe." Yuno thought worriedly as she paced around her living room. It was past midnight and there was no sign of Arata at all. But the headlights of a car driving up her house snapped her out of her worries and she dashed to the door where Arata was just getting out of his car.

"Arata!" She cried as she threw her arms around him.

"Yuno." Arata buried his face in the crook of her neck and took in her scent. "Sorry I'm late."

"I was worried when you didn't call."

"Sorry about that." Arata rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I got sidetracked after the race and got lost."

"How did the race go?" Yuno asked, pulling back.

"Better than I anticipated." Arata smiled. "Houjou Muraku was also there and was racing too. The both of us tied first place. Then the police was alerted so we had to scram and my chance of finding out anything about him was gone."

"But I can tell that you had a great time racing again." She smiled warmly. "Have you told Vanessa you're back?"

"Not yet. I came here to let you know first that I'm back."

"Well, I bet she's more worried than me. In fact, I won't be surprise if she crashed the couch tonight." Yuno said, placing her hands on her hips. "I'll see you tomorrow so you can go and see to her."

"If you insist." Arata pecked her lips and got back into his car. "Love you."

"Love you too." Yuno waved as Arata drove off.

* * *

Arata quietly tiptoed into his house and closed the door behind him. It would seem that Yuno was right about Vanessa crashing on the couch as the lights in the living room were on. As he entered the living room, he could see her sprawled on the couch with a book in one hand, clearly having fallen asleep while waiting for him.

"Hey." He whispered as he knelt down beside the couch.

Vanessa blinked and when her vision cleared, she smiled and wrapped her arm around him. "You're back. I was beginning to think that something happened to you."

"Sorry." Arata stood up as Vanessa straightened up and sat down beside her. But he smelled something and scrunched up his nose. "Please tell me you didn't try to cook."

"I can't help it." She sighed. "I got back late so there was nothing to eat and I didn't want to go out again."

"What were you doing all day anyway?"

"For starters, I went to Hikari's place and stopped a robber…"

"What?" Arata exclaimed. "You went head on with a robber!?"

"I had help." Vanessa shrugged. "Mikhail was there too so it was fine. And then after that, we hung out in town all afternoon."

Arata had an unreadable expression on his face. "Be honest with me Vanessa, do you like him?"

"Not in that sense." She answered drily. "He just reminds me of someone whom I knew long before our parents married, that's all."

"Really?" Arata raised his eyebrows in surprise, having not heard her mention this before.

"Yup." Vanessa nodded. "So did you find out anything from the race?"

"No, but Muraku guessed that I'm the leader now." Arata said sheepishly.

"What!?" Vanessa's voice resonated all over the house. "How did this happen?"

"It was a bet which neither of us won." Arata sighed. "I wanted to try to force him to drop the case so I made a bet with him that if I won, he would have to do so. But if he won, I would have to reveal who the leader of the guild is. Of course, the both of us tied so neither one of us won the bet. But when we were racing, one of his car tires were punctured in which rendered him losing the race in the first place. So it was only fair that I hinted it since he would have won if the tire didn't get punctured."

"I can't believe it." Vanessa threw up her hands in frustration. "You went there to gather information about him but you ended up exposing yourself and putting the guild at risk instead!"

"I know that." Arata sighed. "But, by racing, I feel like I can understand him more than before. Besides, it's not like he can just arrest me for hinting at something. He will need solid prove before he can make a move."

"I hope that you're right." Vanessa groaned. "By the way, Haruki dropped by earlier. He asked me to tell you that his mother is recovering well and his sister managed to take some time off to take care of her. So he's postponing his plans to go back for the time being."

"Glad to hear that." Arata smiled. "It's getting late. Go to bed." He said as he patted her back.

"Alright. But you have to call the others and let them know that you're back already or they will be pounding on our doors tomorrow morning." Vanessa said with a yawn and headed upstairs.

"Don't worry, I will." Arata said drily and pulled out his phone to make a few calls.

* * *

On another part of town, Muraku got out of a cab and after paying for the fees, he quickly headed to a quaint house and went inside. "The crow…"

"…Barks at midnight." Mikhail completed the password.

"Sorry to bother you this late." Muraku nodded at him. "I haven't had any news from you at all since you joined the guild."

"I figured that it would be better since they still don't trust me that much." Mikhail explained as he brought his friend to the living room. "I managed to obtain two names. One of them is Sena…"

"Sena Arata." Muraku finished as he sat down on the couch. "He's the leader, isn't he?"

"How did you figure that out?" Mikhail asked, slightly impressed with his friend's ways of finding out information.

"I raced against him just a few hours ago. I'll give you the details later. Who is the other member?"

"Vanessa Gala." Mikhail answered. "It seems that she and Sena Arata and step-siblings."

"I see." Muraku mused. "Is she the one whom you were talking to this morning?"

"Yes." Mikhail nodded. "Although, there is one more thing. The owner of the café strongly resembles one of the members that I met."

Muraku raised an eyebrow at this and racked his brain. "I remember that she has a twin brother whom is probably the one whom you met. If this is so, then it is likely that she is part of the guild too."

"I don't think so." Mikhail cut in. "For she was not at the base when I was brought there. Also, I don't believe she is actually directly involved with the guild's activities. She could barely hold her own with that robber this morning and all of the members of the guild needed to be athletically fit and know how to defend themselves."

"Fair point. So you know where the base is, right?"

"Yes." Mikhail nodded. "But I don't know where they stored the stolen cash. I don't know if they kept it there or at some other place."

"I see. Until you find out, remain by their side." Muraku instructed. "Try to get close to some of them to earn their trust. I can see that you are working with Vanessa Gala."

"Yeah. It's strange though. I feel like I have actually seen her before I met her last week." Mikhail said thoughtfully.

"Well, just keep up what you are doing with her. I'll continue to monitor the café. We should keep our interactions to the minimum to prevent suspicion and only meet if there is an emergency."

"Got it." Mikhail nodded. "By the way, why do you like going to that café so much?"

"The food is good." Muraku shrugged. "And I like the owner too."

"Even if she's related to someone in the guild?" Mikhail raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think that really matters to her. She seems eager to keep the business of the guild out of her own."

"Right." Mikhail drawled, clearly not entirely believing that. "I agree with you that the food is really good but still…"

"I know." Muraku closed his eyes. "I know that I cannot let my feelings interfere with this assignment. Don't worry. I have it under control. You should do the same."

"Fine." Mikhail sighed. "Will you be staying for the night?"

"No." Muraku shook his head. "I better go now or someone might find out. I can't be certain of the next time we meet so take care."

"You too." Mikhail said as he stood up. "Oh, I just remembered, can you take care of this for the time being?" He asked and took out his FBI badge from his pocket.

"Sure." Muraku nodded and took it. "Good night."

"Good night." Mikhail greeted as his friend left. He was left alone in the house and he pulled out the chain under his shirt. "I'm sure that I have met Vanessa before. But where?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

 _A month later_

Arata read through the file in his hands one more time before closing it. For the past month, their jobs had a sharp drop which he suspected was because of Houjou Muraku chasing them. On the other hand, Mikhail had quickly settled down in the guild and had a firm friendship with Vanessa much to his dismay. Haruki was pleased with Mikhail's progress and decided to fly back to Japan the next week.

He sighed and went down to the common room where everyone was and clapped his hands. "Alright everyone, we have a new task here so gather around."

As everyone collected around the computer, Arata opened up the folder and began writing on the whiteboard. "We have to steal a diamond from our target, the Harold Mansion."

Vanessa raised her hand and asked, "Isn't the Harold family rumored to be part of the corruption in the government?"

"Indeed." Arata nodded. "However, this also means that they are part of politics and therefor will have tight security around the estate."

"Isn't it too risky then?" Haruki frowned.

"Maybe, but I have faith in all of our skills." Arata grinned. "Also, after this, I'm thinking of taking this as our last job for the next five years or until the FBI give up."

Everyone looked astonished at this and Hikaru burst out. "But why do we need to stop?"

"Our jobs have been declining at an alarming rate and this is our first job in three weeks. So, I want all of us to lay low for the time being." Arata explained and looked around. "Any questions on that?"

No one wanted to voice out theirs so Arata continued. "I checked on the Harold's records and there will be a party hosted at the mansion in three days' time. We'll use the party as a cover for our heist and steal the diamond. Once Sakuya is done with the plan, we'll assign the roles."

Sakuya nodded and took the file while the others went back to what they were doing before. Mikhail on the other hand excused himself and went to the bathroom. Once he locked the door behind him, he took out his phone and sent a short text to someone.

* * *

"Thanks for the meal." Muraku said while paying for it.

"You're welcome." Hikari smiled and placed it in the cash register.

Muraku's phone the beeped and he took it out, scanning the text. He narrowed his eyes and quickly pocketed his phone. "Keep the change." He said and headed out.

"What?" Hikari frowned, noticing that he was in a hurry. "There's something wrong with him. Normally he would stay for a few more minutes but it looks like he didn't want to be around for long."

Her phone then rang and she answered it. "Hello?"

 _"Hikari, I won't be coming back tonight. I got somethings I have to do."_ Hikaru told her.

"Does it have anything to do with a heist?" She asked quietly as she headed into the kitchen.

 _"How did you guess?"_ Hikaru asked in mild surprise.

"Just now, Muraku received a text from someone and his entire demure changed. It's like he got news on the guild and possibly on your heist." She answered.

 _"That's strange."_ Hikaru frowned over the phone. _"Arata just told us about the heist not more than thirty minutes ago. How would he had known?"_

"I don't know. But please be on the lookout." Hikari whispered. "I'll continue to keep an eye on him from here."

 _"Thanks a lot. Bye."_

"Bye." Hikari pocketed her phone and headed back to the counter. Inwardly, she was wondering if Muraku indeed managed to snag the news of the guild's heist. If so, then how did he know?

* * *

The guild's hideout was a hive of activity as everyone got ready for the heist. Once Sakuya had thoroughly planned out their routes, Arata gathered everyone at the large screen.

"Alright, here is what we have so far." The room darkened and the blueprints of the mansion popped up on the screen.

"There are five levels on the mansion and the diamond is on the fourth floor at the west wing. The party on the other hand will be held at the ballroom on the first floor." He pointed on the said rooms on the screen. "The plan is to infiltrate the mansion through the party and while creating a distraction, Haruki and Hikaru will steal the diamond. And the getaway driver will be yours truly. As for the distraction, maybe Vanessa and Mikhail can do that." He casted Yuno a small glare as he said the last part which she responded with a peace sign.

Vanessa raised an eyebrow at their interaction but did not ask any questions about it. "So what should we specifically do to create that distraction?"

"Anything as long as it is nothing inappropriate. The two of you have to collaborate on that." Arata muttered under his breath disgruntledly, drawing amused looks from his friends.

"Back to what I was saying." Arata cleared his throat. "While Vanessa and Mikhail create the distraction, Haruki and Hikaru will sneak into the mansion and head to the fourth floor's west wing to steal the diamond. It will be guarded by thirty security cameras, two guards at the door, a heavy duty safe as well as lasers."

"Looks like we'll be busy." Haruki muttered.

"Once you get the diamond, leave the mansion and head over to the wall where I will be waiting for you. Mikhail and Vanessa will be coming over to our position then. Yuno will be on standby in case we need her help."

"That sounds reasonable to me." Hikaru nodded.

"I'll give you and Haruki the routes for entering and leaving in your phones." Sakuya promised them.

"Thanks." They nodded at him.

"So we have our roles for this heist. Let's do our best and succeed in our last job!"

"Yeah!"

* * *

Meanwhile at another part of LA, a man with light blue hair and back eyes that had red lines entered a building where another man with a buzz haircut and black eyes was waiting.

"Itan Kyouji, thank you for agreeing to see me."

"Cut the crap Seredy, I don't want to see you anymore than you do to me." Itan growled. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for the fact that you are agreeing to give a good pay for the job."

"Well, thank you so much for that then." Seredy smiled sweetly. "I want you to kill the head of the Harold family. He had refused to honor his part of a business deal I had with him and therefor, he must be eliminated. At the same time, frame the Landron Guild for this. They will be launching a mission on the night I want you to kill him just so you know."

"Oh." Itan pulled out his lollipop from his mouth. "I understand the assassination part, but I don't understand why I need to frame some lousy thieving guild."

"They have been a thorn in my side, whether they know it or not." Seredy narrowed his eyes. "First they robbed most of our clients, which made them withdraw from our business deals. And then they stole from our supplier which made our funds for weapon manufacturing drop."

'In other words, they pissed him off.' Itan thought with a grimace, knowing altogether too well how Seredy dealt with people like them. He cleared his throat and popped the lollipop back into his mouth. "Fine then, I'll take care of them. But you better give me the money you promised."

"But of course." Seredy smirked. "It will not do to make my most trusted bounty hunter upset."

* * *

On the night of the heist, a disguised Mikhail and Vanessa stepped into the ballroom with ear comns hidden by their hair and with a plan in mind.

 _"So you know what to do?"_ Arata asked through the comns.

"Create a distraction, you asked us four times already. People will notice if you ask again." Vanessa muttered as she scanned the crowd like she usually does during a heist.

 _"Fine, but you better not do anything I would not allow."_

Vanessa's eyebrows knitted into a frowned as she tried to understand what he meant. Recently, Arata was acting very different from usual and it was only when she was around Mikhail. Of course, she knew that he was worried that she would have her heat broken again but it was ridiculous considering that she and Mikhail were only friends.

'Heck, he can blame himself for setting me up for that interview.' She privately thought, thinking back to that day she and Mikhail met for his interview.

"…ath to Vanessa." Mikhail nudged her for the hundredth time, making her snap out of her thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She nodded with a shrug. "I was just thinking of something, that's all."

"Well, you better clear your head. It's time to create that distraction." Mikhail said, giving her a glass of wine.

"Alright." Vanessa screwed up her nose in disgust as she gulped down the contents. Almost immediately she began to feel dizzy. "Mikhail, what did you give me?"

"Wine." He frowned and realization fell on him. "Don't tell me you can't have it."

Vanessa had somehow managed to keep her mind straight as she answered, "I cannot take any wine with high alcohol content or I'll get very drunk." With that, she passed out as Mikhail quickly caught her.

Mikhail inwardly cursed at his mistake. Now they won't be able to make the distraction as promised. But on the other hand, this could be a chance to keep her away when Muraku takes action. But as it turns out, he didn't need to worry about it.

Up in the balcony overseeing the ballroom, Itan was watching the head of the Harold family chatting with some important people.

'No doubt some of his 'business' associates.' Itan thought and cocked his gun at him, firing the trigger. The bullet flew across the room and passed through the man's forehead.

There was a second of silence as blood spilled all over and finally, people began to scream loudly and made a mad rush for the exits.

Mikhail gritted his teeth and activated his ear comn. "Arata, we have trouble here. Someone killed the head of the Harold family. You got to get Haruki and Hikaru to leave this place now!"

 _"Got it!"_

Mikhail then swung Vanessa on his back and ran out with the crowd and slipped out of the compound once they were out of the building. Of course, Arata was waiting in his car with Haruki and Hikaru thankfully inside.

"What in the world happened in there and why is Vanessa passed out!?" Arata demanded as he pulled away.

"Well, someone shot the head in the head from where and who, I don't know." Mikhail quickly answered as he carefully laid Vanessa on the seat with Hikaru's help. As the latter rested her head on his shoulder, he frowned when he smelled something.

"Did she take alcohol?"

Mikhail's lack of answer was all Arata needed. He nearly drove into a ditch but thankfully, Haruki caught the steering wheel and straightened the car.

"We can talk about this when we get back to the base." He told his friend. "Right now, we need to focus on getting back safely."

Arata reluctantly agreed and muttered a few curses under his breath, which would have made Haruki and Hikaru roll their eyes had the situation they were in not that serious.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

The FBI agents that were swarming the scene stepped aside to allow Muraku to pass as he went over to the corps when the forensics were done with their work. He bent down to examine it and noted where the head of the family was standing when he was shot and the angle of the bullet.

"Sir, we have confirmed that the snipper was on the balcony when he shot the victim." One of the forensics informed him, confirming his earlier suspicions. "Also, your tech guy is asking for you."

"Thanks." Muraku nodded and went back out to his car where Kageto was waiting while typing furiously on his laptop.

"Muraku." Kageto greeted him without looking up. "I checked the security cameras and I found these."

He allowed Muraku to see the screen where there were two windows. One of the showed the balcony where the assassin was and the other showed Haruki and Hikaru stealing the diamond at the same time.

"What do you think?" Kageto asked with a pointed look.

Muraku observed the two frames for a while and ran his fingers through his hair. "It does look there was a burglary the same time he was killed.

"Well, things just happen." Kageto shrugged but narrowed his eyes at one of the frames. "I think you should look at this."

Muraku's eyes drifted to the frame that Kageto was talking about and frowned. "Doesn't this guy look a lot like Mikhail?"

"I think so." Kageto folded his hands and nodded in agreement. "And it looks like he was with a lady too."

Muraku leaned in closer to the screen and noted that the lady did look a lot like Vanessa Gala. "I think I know who she is. If my hunch is correct, then the Landron Guild is connected to this."

"Do you think that they are the ones who killed the head?" Kageto asked uncertainly.

Muraku thought about it for a moment and glanced at the screen again. If it had been the guild that murdered the head, then Mikhail would have been certain to inform him but then again, they could be keeping him in the dark. But thinking back to the time he raced Arata, there was no trace of malice or anything like that in him. In fact, he was almost sincere if not a bit tricky.

"I don't think so." He finally said. "Mikhail would have told us ahead of time if they really were involved. But then again, we cannot be sure of that. So for now, they are our main suspects. Also…"

"Also what?" Kageto raised an eyebrow.

Muraku kept quiet as he did some calculations in his mind. "Kageto, can you bring up all of the files of the guild's heist for the past six months?"

"I think I can do that by tomorrow." Kageto nodded. "Why?"

"I think I'm seeing a pattern in their heist." Muraku said slowly. "But in the meantime, I'm going to see if I can get a hold of Mikhail."

"Wouldn't that be risky?"

"The situation is already too risky." Muraku said calmly and started the engine. "It's only a matter of time until they find out."

* * *

Once they had arrived back at the hideout, Arata jumped out and carried Vanessa up to the spare bedroom, calling over his shoulder, "Haruki, have everyone gathered at the common room. Oh, and have Sakuya hack the security cameras of the mansion too."

"Already ahead of you." Sakuya informed them as he came out to greet them. "And the results are not promising."

"Just get ready for the meeting." Arata grunted and disappeared from sight.

Yuno turned to Mikhail who looked guilty and patted his shoulder. "It's fine, he's just usually like this to newbies. Just give him time to warm up to you."

"I'm not worried about that…"

"Then is it about Vanessa?" Not waiting for an answer, she continued, "You don't have to worry about that either. We found out the hard way too. Come on, we better head over to the common room before Arata comes down."

Mikhail nodded and followed her to the common room where Sakuya was busy setting up the screen with Haruki and Hikaru's help. All in all, the mission was a total success but at the same time, it was a disaster given that someone was murdered during the heist.

"Mikhail, we're going to need you to tell us everything that you know since you were the only one who was at the scene other than Vanessa." Haruki informed him.

He took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright, but I'm not sure if there is anything to say since it happened so quickly and unexpectedly. One moment I was with Vanessa to carry out our part and the next moment, there was a gunshot and it did not help that everyone was panicking so I did not see anything."

"You sound like you're not disturbed by the fact that you had to see a bloody corpse." Hikaru said suspiciously.

"Hikaru!" Yuno hissed at him. "Give him some space."

"I hate to say it, but I agree with Hikaru." Arata said as he stepped down to the common room and narrowed his eyes at Mikhail. "You were a little too quick to react and called off the heist in my opinion."

"Would you had rather to stay around and let the police catch us?" Mikhail shot back, feeling annoyed that Arata and Hikaru were suspicious of him. "The first thing that came into my mind was to get out of there before the cops turned up."

"Arata, Hikaru, give him a break." Haruki spoke up quietly. "There is no point in arguing about this when we have pressing matters on our hand."

"What do you mean?" Arata cocked his head at him.

Haruki did not answer but nodded at Sakuya who reluctantly switched on the screen, revealing the local news anchorwoman.

 _"Breaking news, what initially was a birthday party for the politician, Matten Harold's son turned into his grisly murder. Investigations are currently underway but rumor has it that around the time of his murder, the Landron Guild is said to be stealing the Eye Diamond, the prize possession of the family. Therefore, the main suspects of this case is the guild itself…"_

"Turn it off." Arata said harshly.

Sakuya jumped but quickly switched the news channel to his own computer. Everyone gave Arata frowns at his harshness and he sighed. "Sorry, I just lost it back there."

"That's a bit understandable." Hikaru said quietly to Haruki.

"Yeah." Haruki nodded and turned to Sakuya. "Can you show us the security camera footages you found?"

"Sure." Sakuya nodded and showed them the frame of security footage of the man on the balcony. "Like I mentioned earlier, I don't think it is very promising since he is very careful not to show his face at all. It's like he knew where the security cameras are placed and purposely avoided them."

"While people can hide their faces, they cannot hide their tracks." Arata said thoughtfully. "Search the other security cameras and see if you can track down how he entered and left the mansion. Maybe he even had a car hiding nearby."

"Alright. I'll try but it will take me a while."

"On the other hand, we should get some rest." Arata added. "We can continue to figure this out tomorrow."

Everyone nodded in agreement and headed up to the spare bedrooms to crash in for the night. But Mikhail waiting until everyone was asleep and sent a message to Muraku, asking him to meet him tomorrow at his house.

* * *

When Mikhail headed down to the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, he found Vanessa taking some aspirins. "Morning."

"Oh, morning." Vanessa gave him a tired smile.

"So how are you feeling?" He asked concernedly.

"Other than a really bad headache, I'm fine." She shrugged. "So what happened last night? Did we succeed in the assignment?"

Mikhail paused and looked away, making her frown. "Mikhail, what happened?"

Hesitantly, he began to explain everything to her from the failed distraction to the assassination to the fact that the guild is the main suspect of the case.

When he was done, Vanessa's jaws dropped wide open. "That really happened?"

"I'm afraid so." Mikhail said grimly and gave her an apologetic look. "I'm sorry about last night though."

"It wasn't your fault." Vanessa rolled her eyes. "I kind of expected it to happen since I was careless and forgot that they always sever strong wine at parties like that."

"I see." Mikhail smiled. "I heard that Sakuya will be trying to track down the assassin and would probably be done today."

"That's a relief." Vanessa got up and stretched. "I'm going to head back to my room and change. Hopefully this annoying headache will disappear by the time everyone else wakes up."

"You and me." Mikhail chuckled as stood up too. "I'm going back to my house for a while though. Do you mind letting Arata know about it?"

"Not at all but what are you going to do?" She asked curiously.

"Just get some things that I need for the next few days." He lied. "But I will be back by this afternoon."

"Alright." Vanessa nodded. "But if you need anything, we're just a phone call away."

"Sure." Mikhail nodded and left through the backdoor. He felt bad for having to lie to Vanessa but he had to put duty in front of personal matters. As soon as he arrived at his house, he went into the living room where Muraku and Kageto were waiting.

"Mikhail." Muraku stood up when he saw him. "Calling me out to see me is a foolish move on your part."

"Sorry about that." He said apologetically. "But there is something I need to let you know. The guild is not very likely the one who assassinated the head of the Harold family and are now tracking down the real assassin."

"I suspected that much." Muraku sighed. "Kageto, can you show him the results of our investigation?"

"Sure." Kageto nodded and allowed Mikhail to see the screen. "Over the past few months, the Landron Guild has been targeting specific locations, namely, mansions or businesses that belong to people who are suspected to be involved in illegal activities. So we can conclude that they have angered someone with that to the point where they framed them for the murder."

"I think you're right." Mikhail told them. "But the question is, who is the one who killed the head?"

"I don't think we can answer that just now." Muraku shook his head. "But we will keep on looking. I assume that the guild will be doing the same. So Mikhail, from now on, we will not meet but send us whatever information you have to me through email."

"Sure." Mikhail nodded.

"By the way, Hoshihara Hikari was brought in for questioning just now." Muraku informed him as he walked him to the door. "Somehow, rumors were spread around HQ saying that she is somehow related to the guild so the higher ups sent someone to bring her in. This may make the guild realize that they have a mole in their mist."

"Well, someone of them are already suspicious of me." Mikhail shrugged. "So my cover will be blown sooner or later. But I do hope that it will be the latter."

"Me too." Muraku placed a hand on his shoulder. "When the time comes, I hope that we can work side by side again."

"Of course." Mikhail glanced outside for anyone watching and headed straight for his car. Once he drove off, Muraku closed the door behind him and went back to the living room.

"Muraku, there's something you should know." Kageto told him once he came back. "When the higher ups were questioning Hoshihara Hikari, a lawyer came and bailed her out. But the thing is, Hoshihara said that she does not have a lawyer. So by the time they wanted to chase after them, they were already gone."

"How long ago was this?" Muraku frowned.

"About fifteen minutes ago."

"I'll be back." Muraku said, grabbing his gun and his badge. He headed out through the door and ran down to Hikari's café to check on her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

Hikari was unsure as to whether she should be relief or not when Ami had bailed her out of the FBI HQ. But all the same, she was thankful for that.

"You don't have to open the café today if you don't feel like it. I'll call Ban and let him know of this so just wait here until Hikaru or someone comes here." Ami had told her before she left.

Now, Hikari was mulling over decision of opening the café that day but a sharp rap on the door made her look up. She carefully opened the door slightly and peaked out. She frowned when she saw that it was Muraku standing outside. But he looked like he had run a whole marathon just to get here.

"Muraku, what do you want?" She frowned. "If it is to bring me back to your headquarters…"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to do that." Muraku quickly reassured her. "I just wanted to see if you were alright since I was informed that you went off with an unknown lawyer."

"For your information, she's an old acquaintance of mine." Hikari said stiffly as she opened the door wider. "I didn't think that she would actually step in and bail me out. Now, what else do you want to know?"

Muraku stood up straighter and looked at her in the eye. "Where is your brother?"

"I don't know." Hikari glared back. "Why does the FBI think that he is part of the Landron Guild?"

Muraku wordlessly reached for a photo in his pocket and showed it to her. "This was taken from the security cameras from the Harold Mansion last night. Your brother and his accomplices were stealing a diamond from the safe around the same time Matten Harold was assassinated."

Hikari's eyes became wide at the photo and she took a step back. "How could this be…But just because he was caught stealing a diamond, it doesn't mean that he is part of the guild!"

"An informant of mine had already confirmed it." Muraku said tersely and turned to leave. "Good day."

"Wait, who is this informant?" Hikari demanded, grabbing his arm to stop him from leaving.

"That is for me to know and you to find out." Muraku said and pulled away his arm.

Hikari stumbled back and watched him leave, feeling stun. Once she closed the door, she ran her fingers through her scalp nervously. "Who is this informant and how does he know that Hikaru is in the guild?"

She quickly ran to the back room and pulled out her emergency phone and dialed Hikaru's number.

* * *

"Where's Mikhail?" Arata frowned when he realized that he was the only one not in the living room for the meeting.

"He went back to his house to get a few things." Vanessa told him. "He did say that he should be back by this afternoon."

Arata's frown deepened as he glanced at Hikaru who had a dark look on his face. "Well, we will have to begin without him. Sakuya, can you tell us what you have already found?"

"Sure." Sakuya nodded and switched on the screen. "I hacked into the security cameras both inside and outside the mansion grounds and I managed to trace down our guy's tracks. He had snuck in and out of the mansion through the window and had a car parked a block away from the mansion. Then, I hacked into the traffic lights cameras and managed to route down where he went. The last known area where the car was seen was at the port. I think he is hiding within one of the warehouses there."

"But can you narrow it down?" Haruki frowned.

"Yup." Sakuya nodded and typed a few things into his computer and grinned. "I got it. He's at the Kriesler Industries' third warehouse."

"Kriesler Industries." Arata frowned. "If I remember correctly, almost all of our heist within the last six months were somehow related to that company."

"Do you think that it is a trap?" Yuno asked him.

"It's very likely. But since this is our only lead, we just have to go and check it out." Arata said with a grim smile. "Haruki, you and Yuno are going with me to see for ourselves who is our guy."

"But before you go, I need to tell you guys something." Hikaru spoke up. "I got a call from Hikari this morning. The FBI already know that I am part of the guild."

"How?" Arata asked sharply.

"Houjou Muraku had confirmed with her that there was an informant that told them. And therefore, I suspect that there is a mole in our mist."

"But all of us have been part of the guild for years now. How can you be sure that it is one of us that is sneaking information to the FBI?" Vanessa protested.

"Yes, all of us except for one have been loyal to the guild for a long time." Hikaru reminded her.

"You think that it is Mikhail?" Arata asked, realizing who Hikaru was talking about.

"Yes." Hikaru nodded.

Vanessa did not look like she believed it while the others were unsure of it. Arata then turned back to them and continued to assign their roles, "Sakuya, can you monitor the situation from here and let us know if there is anything happening?"

"Of course." Sakuya nodded and turned back to his computer.

"In the meantime, since your identity has been exposed, I think you should stay back and watch over our hideout." Arata nodded at him. "And Vanessa, I think you should go and see how Hikari is doing."

"Sure." She nodded and went to grab her handbag when Arata stopped her.

"Remember, you cannot let Mikhail know about our suspicions about him if you see him." Arata said pointedly.

Vanessa nodded silently and left the hideout. Along the way to the café, she could not help but wonder if Mikhail was really the one sneaking information to the FBI.

'I know that all logic pins him as our suspect but I do believe that he is not the one.' Vanessa frowned in thought. 'What's more, I am very sure now that he is the friend that I talked about with Arata that day.'

She pursed her lips as she drove closer to the café and parked a block away. As she got closer to the café, Hikari ran out over to her.

"Vanessa, I'm so glad to see you." She cried as she hugged her tightly.

"I'm glad to see you too." Vanessa returned the hug but she quickly broke away and pulled her back inside. "So what happened? Why would Houjou Muraku tell you that he knows that Hikaru is in the guild?"

"I did not dare to tell my brother this but this morning, the FBI came and brought me to their HQ for questioning. Luckily, Ami came and bailed me out." She blurted out.

"What?!" Vanessa said in shock.

"Anyway, after she left, Muraku came over. It seems that the FBI thought Ami suspicious since I told them that I did not have a lawyer and she showed up out the blue." Hikari continued sheepishly. "And then he showed me a picture that the security cameras of the mansion caught with Hikaru and Haruki stealing the diamond."

"But I thought Sakuya had disabled them." Vanessa said in disbelief. "Then how…"

"I don't know." Hikari said frustratedly. "Look this is all that I know. Any luck in finding out who is the mole?"

"Hikaru and Arata thinks that it is Mikhail." Vanessa said softly. "They think that it is him since he is the only one who isn't part of the guild for long."

"But do you think that it is him?" Hikari asked pointedly.

"I don't know." Vanessa shook her head. "Anyway, I have to go back now. Will you be alright by yourself?"

"Don't worry about me." Hikari smiled as she walked her to the door. "I hope that you guys can clear your name and find the real culprit."

Vanessa nodded and walked over to her car. But before she got inside, she caught some movement out of the corner of her eye. Straightening up, she went over to see what it was but saw nothing. Frowning, she was about to get back into her car when a sharp pain came from her side and she fell down unconscious.

Itan smirked as he stepped out of his hiding spot with a Taser in his hand. "Too easy."

He searched her pocket for her keys and carried her to the backseat of her car, tying up her wrist with a cable tie. Once he was done, he jumped into the driver's seat and drove off.

* * *

Over at the hideout, Sakuya frowned when he noticed that the signal tracker on Vanessa's car disappeared from the monitor. "Hikaru, Vanessa's car signal disappeared."

"What?" Hikaru jumped from the window still and went over to his side and frowned at the screen. "You're right. Why would Vanessa destroy her signal tracker when she knows that it is too dangerous to do so?"

"What's going on?" Mikhail asked as he entered.

"Where have you been?" Hikaru narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"At my house and what happened to Vanessa?" Mikhail shot back.

"I don't know." Sakuya shook his head frantically as he worked on his computer. "Just now, her car signal disappeared so I'm going to try and look for her handphone signal."

"I'm going out to look for her. Call me if you find her." Mikhail said, throwing back on his jacket and ran out of the door.

"Wait!" Hikaru called after him but it was too late. He groaned and sat down on the couch. "What should we do now?"

"I think you should let Arata know." Sakuya told him, not looking up from the screen. "I think I'm close to finding her handphone signal but it will still take me some time."

"Alright." Hikaru sighed and picked up his phone. He paused when a thought occurred to him. "Do you think that whatever happened to Vanessa has something to do with the assassin?"

"I wouldn't count out that possibility. But if it is so, then I don't think they will find anything at the warehouse." Sakuya sighed. "Call him and let him know about this. I'll continue to monitor the warehouse and look for Vanessa."

"I hope he doesn't mess up the mission after I tell him about this." Hikaru muttered and dialed Arata's number but frowned when no one picked up. "Strange, I thought he would leave his handphone on in case you would call him."

"Try the others then." Sakuya said with a hint of panic entering his voice.

Hikaru dialed both Yuno and Haruki's numbers but the results were the same. "It's no use." He cried in frustration. "Neither of them are picking up either."

Sakuya frowned and checked something on his computer and suddenly yelled, "We've been had!"

"What?" Hikaru rushed to his side and saw on the screen that the security cameras at the warehouse closed down. "Sakuya, what happened?"

"The footage was a fake." Sakuya slammed his fist on the table. "Someone knew that we would be hacking into the security cameras so they were one step ahead of us and froze the image. That's why it looked as though nothing had happened at the warehouse!"

Hikaru gritted his teeth as his fist tightened around his phone. "Is there anything we can do now?"

"I don't think so." Sakuya shook his head with a sigh. "We can only hope that they are safe."


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

Arata's face was grim as he drove up to the warehouse. He could feel the same grimness of Yuno and Haruki at the back. As soon as he pulled to a stop, he turned to Yuno. "I think we should bring our guns inside. There's no telling of what we would meet inside there."

Yuno nodded and distributed two guns to Haruki and Arata each before stuffing as many smoke bombs and stun grenades in her backpack.

"I think we should have a small bomb on hand, just in case." Haruki told her.

"I suppose so." She shrugged and managed to fit in a small bomb and a grenade for extra precaution.

"Done yet?"

"Yeah." Yuno smirked at Arata.

"Then let's go." Arata stepped out of the car with his gun in his hands and went over to the warehouse with Haruki and Yuno trailing behind him. When they entered the warehouse, they were hit with the smell of burnt metal.

"Oh no, don't tell me…" Arata trailed off when they rounded around the corner and saw the already burnt down car which the assassin used to get away. "I was hoping that we were not too late." He groaned. "But it seems that he is one step ahead of us."

"But from the looks of it, it was just recent." Haruki mused as he stepped closer to the car to examine it.

"Don't move!"

Arata nearly groaned again as he turned around. "Houjou Muraku, it seems that we meet again. How did you find us?"

"That is none of your business." Muraku said coolly as he cocked his gun at them.

"Really, then I guess it must be your mysterious informant then." Yuno glared at him.

"Then must have known by now that there is a mole in your mist." Muraku smirked.

'If he is playing mind games to get me to revel what I know, then two can play at one game.' Arata thought to himself. "Well, what do you know? The great FBI agent admitted that he planted a mole in our mist. I can't believe we missed that."

Yuno and Haruki flicked their eyes in confusion at him until it dawned on them that he was trying to draw out information from him so they kept quiet. Arata then continued to dig at him. "Your mole must be smart for us not to find out about him for so long. I wonder though, can he tell you that we are innocent in this whole assassination matter?"

"I don't care if you are innocent or not. All I care is bringing you in to be judged at the court." Muraku said with a small glare. "As for the assassination matter, that is beyond my jurisdiction."

"Sorry, but my years of being a street racer taught me to detect a lie when I hear one." Arata said smugly. "If you want to find the assassin, fine, we'll leave you alone. But if you are here for the car, then I'm afraid that you're too late. He burnt it down, knowing that you were on his track."

Muraku flicked his eyes to the burnt car and that was the distraction that Yuno needed. With a flick of her wrist, she threw a smoke bomb on the floor and as it exploded, smoke began to fill the warehouse.

"Come on." Arata whispered to Yuno and Haruki, pulling them by the arm to the other entrance and they ran back to the car.

Muraku soon ran out of the warehouse and shot at their car but the bullets only bounced off the bumper. He swore and jumped into his car, chasing after them.

"Kageto, I need a lock on them." He told his tech through the radio.

 _"What? But I can't see them or your car for the matter on the security cameras."_ Kageto told him in confusion.

Muraku bit his lip and stepped on the gas. "Never mind, get ahold of Mikhail for me. Tell him that there is no need to be with them. I think they already know who he really is."

 _"Right."_

The chase was intense in Arata's option. No matter how many turns he made, Muraku was sure to keep up with him. The only reason why he was not able to catch up to them was because he was not using his race car but the FBI car. "Any ideas?"

"Over there!" Yuno pointed at the abandon warehouse two blocks down. "If we can get inside, I can rig something to lose him."

"Ok." Arata nodded and steered towards the said warehouse. But once his car drove inside, the doors automatically shut closed and locked up.

"What?!" Muraku gasped and quickly served to avoid crashing into the steel doors. He hopped out of his car and tried pushing the doors open but it would not budge. "Did Arata chose this place because it was another one of their hideouts…no, I don't think so." He glanced around and spotted the fire escape so he headed towards it and climbed up.

* * *

"What was that?" Yuno wondered about the doors closing behind them.

Arata suddenly slammed down on the brakes and narrowly missed the blockade of work materials in front. They got out of the car and looked around.

"I don't think this is any ordinary warehouse." Haruki frowned.

"But it looks like Muraku didn't follow us in." Arata narrowed his eyes at the door and then shook his head. "It seems like someone is trying to isolate us from him. But why?"

"I can answer that."

The three of them jerked their heads up and saw Seredy on one of the walk ways with a smirk on his face.

"Nice to meet you." He bowed. "I am Seredy Kriesler. The owner of the warehouse you came from and the one we are in now."

"Seredy Kriesler?" Arata frowned but his eyes flew wide when he realized who he is. "You're the owner of the Kriesler Industries!"

"Indeed." He smiled, but it quickly turned into a glare. "The Landron Guild has been interfering with my business for too long. That is why I hired a bounty hunter to frame you for a crime which you never committed so that you will learn the hard way of the consequences of crossing my path."

"If you mean messing up your business through our heist which scared off your business partners, then we didn't meant to do it." Arata said sarcastically. "I'm not the one who plan the assignments. I just accept them as we go from our own clients."

"I see." Seredy cocked his head. Inwardly, he was wondering who were their clients who managed to plan it out such that their heist would somehow target his own business partners. But on another note, he could punish the guild to send a message to their clients. He smirked and pressed a remote control in his pocket. A screen then lowered down from the ceiling. "No matter. I don't care if your interference is intentional or not. You will pay the price for crossing me, Sena Arata. Starting with those close to you."

The screen flickered to life and Arata blanched at the image shown. Vanessa was unconscious and bounded to a chair in a dark room with Itan Kyouji smirking in the background.

"Since you are so close to your step-sister, I thought I would start with her." Seredy said casually. "Unless you agree to sign a confession that the guild was behind the assassination and hand over all of the money you stole, I will consider releasing her."

"Haruki, Yuno, what should I do?" Arata whispered desperately. "I cannot compromise the reputation of the guild but I want to save Vanessa…"

Haruki looked away while Yuno shook her head worriedly. "We don't know either."

"Seredy Kriesler! You are under arrest!" Muraku cried out when he emerged on the walkway with his gun pointed at him.

"Houjou Muraku, I did not expect you to join the party." Seredy narrowed his eyes at him. "And if I'm going to be arrested, I would like to hear the charges."

"Kidnapping, murder and illegal business activities." Muraku listed with a cool smile as he slowly walked over to him while subtly placing a device on the screen.

"Well, I would like to see the proof of it." Seredy suddenly smirked.

"This screen and from what I heard and recorded clearly proves that." Muraku gestured at the screen and pulled out his phone which he used to record the conversation.

"No matter, you won't get it to your superiors anyway." Seredy's smirk widen and snapped his fingers. Several snippers then emerged from the rafters and cocked their rifles at him and the trio down below.

"What are the chances of us getting out of here unharmed?" Arata whispered to Haruki and Yuno.

"I think it would be higher if we retaliated." Yuno whispered as she pulled out a smoke bomb from her backpack.

"Good idea." Haruki nodded as he and Arata pulled out their guns.

Up in the walkway, Muraku eyed the snippers as he cautiously glanced around. Seredy waved at him and stepped out of the range of the snippers. "I hope you have a good time being shot at by my snippers."

Muraku glared at him but the snippers opened fire and he was in a very vulnerable and exposed position so he flipped over the railings of the walkway and fell down straight onto Arata's car.

"I hope you know just how expensive it is to get another paint job done." Arata tried to joke as he pulled Muraku off to the side where he, Haruki and Yuno had taken cover at.

"Trust me, those are nightmares and I hope that I never fall onto another car again in my career." Muraku groaned as he aimed his gun and shot up at the rafters. Beside him, the others were doing the same.

"Yuno, smoke bomb and stun grenade!" Arata called when he and Haruki ran out of bullets.

"Right." Yuno nodded and tossed up both a smoke bomb and stun grenade. The snippers shot at them and a small explosion occurred. Smoke began to fill up the warehouse while a pulse emitted from the explosion and when it hit the snippers, they became paralyzed and fell down from the rafters.

The group below on the other hand were safe since they were out of range of the pulse.

"We better get out of here." Arata stood up and led them to a storeroom with a computer inside. The person in front of the computer jumped but Haruki knocked him out with a sharp blow to his head.

"We may be able to get more proof of Seredy Krieslers crimes from this computer." Muraku suggested.

"On it, but you guys will have to keep them out." Haruki said as he sat in front of the computer and began hacking into it.

"We'll need an alternate escape route, so Yuno?" Arata cocked her head at her as he and Muraku began barricading the door with the cupboards in the room.

"Got it." Yuno nodded and dug through her back for that small bomb.

Yells could be heard from the other side of the door and something pounded on the door very hard that Arata and Muraku threw their weight on the barricade to keep it up.

"Haruki, how much longer?" Yuno asked as she fastened the bomb onto the opposite wall and punched in a code to unlock the safety catch.

"Soon." Haruki called back as he continued to type furiously with sweat pouring out of his brow.

"Come on." Arata muttered under his breath as he pushed the barrier up harder.

"I'm done." Haruki told them as he pulled out the memory stick.

"Blow it up Yuno!"

"Right!" Yuno punched in the code for the countdown to start and scrambled over to Arata's side as the bomb exploded, creating a hole in the wall.

"Go!" Arata nodded at Haruki and Yuno who nodded and dove through the hole. "Muraku, on the count of three, we run."

"Fine by me. One…two…"

"Three!" Arata finished for him and they dove through the hole just as the door blasted open. They rolled on the ground and quickly got up. Muraku ran back to his car while Arata jumped inside the car that Haruki and Yuno hijacked.

But before he got in, Muraku called out to him. "Meet me at Lake Melody!"

Arata glanced back and nodded slightly before jumping in and Haruki drove off just as Seredy storm out of the building and fired his gun at the two escaping cars but they missed.

"No matter." Seredy growled. "Sena Arata will not simply leave Vanessa Gala. He will be coming for her and that's where we will meet again."


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

 **Sorry it's a bit late but my father had the worst idea of initiating a 'no electronics' weekend so it took me so long to update.**

* * *

When Vanessa finally came to, she shook her head to clear the fogginess in her brain and tried to bring her hand to her head, she realized that she could not move them. She glanced behind the chair that she was sitting on and the fogginess from her head cleared up immediately. Her hands were bounded by the wrist behind the chair by cable ties. She tried tugging on her legs and realized that they were bounded to the chair legs too by more cable ties.

"I see that you are awake."

Vanessa jerked up her head and squinted around the dark room. "Who are you and what do you want with me?"

"Relax, without my boss' permission, I cannot hurt you in anyway." Itan said with a smirk as he stepped into her view. "You and your friends have caused him quite the trouble for the past few months so he wants to get even with you guys."

"What?" Vanessa racked her brains to understand what he was saying but nothing made sense to her.

"Don't worry, you will understand with time." With that, Itan struck her on the head, knocking her out again.

"Has she woke up yet?" Seredy said as he entered the room.

"Yes, but I took care of it." Itan's smirk grew wider as he stepped aside to let Seredy have a better look of her. A large bruise was beginning to form where he struck her earlier and Seredy frowned at him for it.

"Pity that she has to be part of the guild." Seredy mused as he lifted her head by the chin. "Otherwise I would have been reluctant to finish her of."

"So we are still going with the original plan?"

"Yes." Seredy nodded. "Once I get Sena Arata to agree to my terms, you are to dispose her immediately."

"How 'bout I keep her instead since your objective is to made Sena Arata suffer?" Itan suddenly suggested, much to his surprise more than to Seredy's.

"Do what you want then. I don't care what it is as long as she suffers." Seredy finally said after some thought. He headed for the door but paused with his hand on the door knob. "By the way, be expecting the FBI or the guild to come here and rescue her. Also, she will be counted as part of the payment we agreed on. So don't complain if I pay you less."

Itan scowled as Seredy left and turned to Vanessa's unconscious form. "You better be worth the trouble or I will not hesitate to make you surfer in the most painful and humiliating way." He said to her despite still being unconscious and trailed his fingers down her cheek and frowned. "Why is it that you look familiar…No matter, You better be grateful that I stepped in so Seredy spared your life."

* * *

As he drove closer to Lake Melody, Muraku switched on the GPS screen on his dashboard. The device that he placed on the TV screen back at the warehouse was in fact a tracer that can trace down the location where the footage was being broadcasted from.

'The North Industrial District.' He thought grimly when the tracer sent back the data into the GPS. 'So that's where they care holding Vanessa Gala.'

He grabbed his radio and tuned into Kageto's frequency. "Kageto, come in."

 _"Muraku!"_ Kageto exclaimed in relief. _"I was getting worried when you would not answer my calls. What happened?"_

"I don't have much time to explain but I need you and Mikhail to meet me at Lake Melody in an hour's time. I'll explain everything there. Oh, and bring my car too."

 _"Alright, we'll be there. Over and out."_

"Over and out." Muraku replaced the radio and refocused on the road, pulling into a parking spot in the lake's parking lot. Arata's car soon drove up and parked beside in. All of them got out of their cars and Arata scowled at him.

"Why did you ask us to meet you here?"

"To talk." Muraku said simply and gestured for them to follow him. When none of them did, he rolled his eyes and cocked his head at them. "I know how to find your sister. Unless you come with me, I won't tell you how."

"Arata, it's probably a trap." Yuno warned him.

"I know, but I need to save Vanessa and I have nothing to lose if I go with him. But the both of you can stay here and save me if he does try to arrest me." Arata pointed out and went after Muraku's departing form before Yuno or Haruki could protest.

"Do you think we should follow him?" Yuno frowned.

"No." Haruki shook his head. "I don't believe Muraku would actually arrest Arata. If he had wanted to, he would have arrested us the moment we stepped out of the car. I'm going to call Sakuya and give him and update. And I think we should bring Hikari in to our hideout before Seredy takes it into his head to capture her too."

"Ok." Yuno sighed and followed him back into the car.

* * *

Meanwhile, Muraku had led Arata over to a quiet spot near the lake and folded his arms. "I'm sure that you would have guessed by now who the mole is."

"It's Mikhail." Arata stated more than asked. "To be honest, I always suspected him. As a seasonal thief, I knew that his record is almost too perfect for an average thief."

"I guess that was our mistake." Muraku shrugged. "But I did not plant him there to take down the guild."

"What?" Arata narrowed his eyes. "Then why?"

Muraku stared at him for a while as though contemplating on something before sighing. "To be honest, my assignment was never to capture the Landron Guild. It was always a cover so that I can investigate Seredy and his organization better since the guild's heist always somehow coincide with Seredy's allies or suppliers."

Arata blinked in surprise at this. "You mean all this while, you were investigating Seredy and not us?"

"Yup." Muraku nodded. "However, the only people who knows about this are my superiors, me myself and my tech guy. Mikhail was never informed of this so that he can act more naturally should he ever confront Seredy. It was not until he told me that you target your heist victims through pre-given assignments from your clients that I found out that they are somehow using you to breakdown Seredy's black market business."

"So Seredy thinks that we are messing with him which is why he framed us for last night's assassination and kidnapped Vanessa?" Arata frowned.

"Most likely. Seredy Kriesler is not someone whom you would want to mess with." Muraku said grimly. "He can be very dangerous as he has various spies and assassins working under him."

Arata clenched his fist as he thought of what Seredy could be doing to Vanessa and looked at Muraku square in the eye. "How can I find Vanessa?"

Muraku closed his eyes for a moment and opened them. "I cannot tell you unless you agree to my terms."

"And what's that?"

"You would leave the rescue of Vanessa Gala to me and my team while you look for Seredy Kriesler's hideout."

"Why?" Arata snarled. "Vanessa is my sister! I have to save her."

"And that is why you should leave her to me and my team." Muraku pointed out. "You are already letting your emotions get the better of you. How can you save her in this state?"

"But if you do, then you will certainly arrest her!"

"No, I won't. I made a bargain with my superiors last night. If I can bring in Seredy along with all the information of his dealings, I can bring in only the leader of the Landron Guild." Muraku sighed exasperatedly. "I tried to convince them to leave the guild to someone else whom would definitely would not be able to arrest you by the way, but they insisted that I carry on with their case so this was the compromise."

"So you're going to arrest me then?" Arata narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him.

"I would rather not to out of respect for you as a fellow street racer, but I need to or I will be thrown into jail myself. But don't worry, I don't plan to do so anytime soon." Muraku said mildly.

"And why so?"

"Because I need your help if I want to bring in Seredy." Muraku explained. "My team and I cannot take him down alone so you're the next best option. You want to save your sister and I want to bring him to justice. It's a win-win situation if we do this together."

Arata observed him carefully and thought over Muraku's proposition in his mind. He finally sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "You will save Vanessa, won't you?"

"As long as you agree to find Seredy's hideout, no matter how long it takes." Muraku promised him. "Once this whole fiasco is over, I will let her go back to your friends and we will resume our cat-and-mouse chase."

"…Deal." Arata extended his hand which Muraku took and shook.

* * *

About half an hour since Arata left the Lake, Mikhail and Kageto arrived in Muraku's car. The former moved to the passenger seat once Muraku came over and took the driver's seat.

"What should we do now?" Mikhail frowned worriedly.

"We're going to the North Industrial District. That's where Seredy Kriesler is holding Vanessa Gala." Muraku said as he started the engine and drove out of the parking lot.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

"You guys! You're back." Sakuya sighed in relief when the trio came back. "I was beginning to get worried. Those guys had set up jammers all over the warehouse so we could not reach you. They also tampered with the security cameras so that they would freeze the image."

"That explains it." Arata muttered under his breath, thinking as to why Sakuya could not warn them about Muraku's appearance at the warehouse. "Seredy Kriesler is behind all this and he has Vanessa now."

"What?" Sakuya jumped. "But how?"

"I don't know." Arata shook his head as they sat down on the couches. "Where's Hikaru?"

"We told him to get Hikari since there is no telling of what Seredy would do next." Haruki told him. "So what did Houjou Muraku tell you just now?"

"Mikhail is indeed the mole." Arata stated with a straight face. "But the thing is, Muraku's objective from the start was never us. It was Seredy."

"But the news…"

"That was a decoy so Seredy would not guess that Muraku is chasing him through us." Arata calmly explained.

"But why us?" Yuno frowned.

"Because like Seredy said, we were targeting his business partners so we were the only lead to him." Haruki said grimly in realization.

"Exactly." Arata nodded. "Right now, we made a bargain. He will look for Vanessa if we look for Seredy's hideout."

"But won't he arrest her after that?!" Yuno half yelled.

"He won't." Arata said calmly. "He told me that the only person he intends to arrest from the guild is me. But he won't for now because he needs us to take down Seredy Kriesler and his crime empire. So it's a temporal truce until Seredy is arrested. After that, we will continue our cat-and-mouse chase."

"Do we really have to?" Hikaru asked from the door, having heard everything.

"Yes, if we want to save Vanessa." Arata sighed and noticed that Hikaru was alone. "Where's Hikari?"

"She didn't want to come." He grunted. "It turns out that the FBI had brought her in for questioning this morning. So they are keeping watch on her place now. Because of that, she could no leave. I had to sneak in through the basement just to get there. But if the FBI are keeping watch at her place, I don't think Seredy would actually go for her for now."

"That's true." Arata mused but held up his hand before Sakuya could say anything. "No, there's no point in checking the security cameras there. Seredy had managed to cripple us once with the cameras. It goes to show that they are one step ahead of us."

"Actually, it's twice." Hikaru corrected him as he sat down on the opposite couch. "Hikari told me how Houjou Muraku had managed to find out Haruki and mine identities. The security cameras at the Harold Mansion were also tampered. Sakuya may had switched them off, but Seredy had managed to bypass his hacking software and switched them back on."

"But that's impossible!" Sakuya said in disbelief as tears began to gather at the corner of his eyes. Arata felt sorry for him then. He had poured his energy and effort into creating his hacking software and it had never fail until now.

"I think we were becoming overconfident with our abilities." Haruki spoke up quietly. "Because we were never arrested or found once, we began to let down our guard and that's how Seredy managed to catch up with us and how Mikhail managed to enter the guild unsuspected initially. Think about it, not once did Sakuya upgrade his hacking software and not once did we think twice that the FBI can plant false records while bypassing our security walls so we did not suspect Mikhail until it was too late."

"I hate to say it, but I agree with you." Arata sighed and slumped on the couch. "I did not think about the possible danger the assassin would be to us and that's why Vanessa is in Seredy's hands."

"Then let's right it."

Everyone glanced in surprise at Sakuya who was furiously wiping his eyes. He looked around and continued, "We have to right our wrongs! We were overconfident, right? Then we have to start being careful again. Muraku said that he will rescue Vanessa if we find Seredy's hideout, so we should start looking into it! And if they can bypass my software, then I'll upgrade it so that it will be my turn to bypass their software."

"You're right." Arata cracked a smile. "We have to start righting our wrongs and clear the name of our guild for murder. But to do that, we need to work with Muraku. So let's start working to bring down Seredy. This will be our final mission before we disband and start over with our lives."

"I'm with you." Hikaru spoke up first.

"Me too." Yuno smiled.

"It'll be a good way to spend my last week in LA before I head back to Japan." Haruki attempted to smile.

"So we are all in agreement." Arata said firmly. "We will work together with Muraku to bring down Seredy."

* * *

"That's the place." Kageto pointed at the only red roofed warehouse in the North Industrial District when Muraku parked on the hill overlooking it.

Muraku pulled out a pair of binoculars and observed it. "It doesn't look like there is anyone outside it. But there is no telling of whose inside."

"So what are we going to do?" Mikhail frowned worriedly.

"Kageto will stay here and monitor the situation. This time, we'll use walkie-talkies instead since they had jammed our phone signals last time. And I'm afraid that you're going to have to use these binoculars instead." Muraku said, passing him his pair. "And Mikhail and I will go in. We'll form a plan as we go."

"Alright." Kageto grumbled slightly as he was not looking forward to the prospect of using the old fashion way instead of his computer.

After they had fastened their guns to their belts, Mikhail and Muraku got out of the car and headed down towards the warehouse.

"Be careful you two." Kageto murmured to himself as he took the pair of binoculars and kept watch of the warehouse.

* * *

Mikhail and Muraku nimbly snuck up to the warehouse while carefully avoiding the workers from the other factories around the area. Once they arrived at the warehouse, they went around the back and pressed themselves against the wall with the door in between them. Muraku nodded at Mikhail and they pulled out their guns. Mikhail kicked down the door and held up his gun in front of him. Once he was sure that no one was on the other side, he went inside, followed by Muraku.

They surveyed the area before heading towards the stairs and went up. But they had not reached the next floor when gunshots sounded and they ducked against the wall to avoid them.

"Snipers." Muraku cursed under his breath. "From the looks of it, there are two of them. I'll lure them out and you shoot them."

"Ok." Mikhail nodded, knowing that Muraku will not get himself shot that easily.

Muraku glanced back up and sprinted back down. A trail of gunshots followed him and Mikhail took his cue and fired his gun up at one of the snipers. The snipper duck back just in time and began firing down at Mikhail's location, causing him to roll towards the railing and jump over it and duck beneath the staircase.

Muraku had managed to take cover behind a support beam and peaked out. Once he had determined the position of the snippers, he jumped out of his hiding spot and fired twice. After that, there was no noise at all. Once they deemed it safe, Muraku and Mikhail went back up the stairs and found the two bodies of the snippers dangling on the railing. Muraku then gestured for Mikhail to follow him and they cautiously proceeded down the corridor.

* * *

Inside the dark room, Itan smirked when he heard the gunshots. He had dispatched two of his best snippers earlier to take care of any intruders and glanced at Vanessa. She was awake again but gagged now. She glared at him as she tugged on her bonds again but only succeeded in cutting the skin on her wrist.

"I would advise you against that." Itan said casually. "You will only make your wrist bleed."

Vanessa however ignored him and tugged on them one more time and this time her wrist really did bleed. Itan gave her 'I-told-you-so' face and chuckled. "Why is it that you want to continue fighting them when it is clear that you will only hurt yourself in the end?"

Vanessa could not reply him but tugged on the cable ties on her ankles this time and the same thing happened. Itan wanted to laugh but he suddenly noticed that the gunshots had subsided and frowned, wondering if his snippers had managed to drive or annihilate the intruders. Just as a precaution, he turned on the TV screen at the corner of the room and his face darkened. He grabbed his switchblade and gun and turned to Vanessa. "I'm surprise that you even have friends in the FBI. But I'm afraid that I'm going to have to disappoint them."

He rounded behind her and pressed the switchblade to her neck as he waited for Muraku and Mikhail to arrive.

'What did he mean by that?' Vanessa thought worriedly and confusedly. 'I thought it would be Arata or the others to come but why the FBI and why did he call them my 'friends'?'

As though sensing her thoughts, Itan smirked and pressed the blade closer to her skin. "I see that you are confuse. But I'm not going to be the one explaining that." On cue, the door was kicked down and Muraku and Mikhail rushed inside but halted in their tracks when they saw that Itan had Vanessa as a hostage.

"Welcome Special FBI Agent Houjou Muraku and Mikhail Rouke." Itan drawled and was satisfied when he felt Vanessa tense and edge in further. "I must say, you are a great actor, Mikhail Rouke. You managed to fool everyone in the Landron Guild with your supposedly perfect criminal record."

"Shut up!" Mikhail snapped before he could say anymore and took a step forward.

Itan instantly reacted by pressing the blade closer to Vanessa's skin and she yelped in pain. She tried to move away from it but Itan stopped her with his elbow. Muraku placed a hand on Mikhail's shoulder and pulled him away, shaking his head. Mikhail got the message and lowered his gun but his eyes did not leave the blade on Vanessa's neck. Itan smirked and pulled the blade away from her neck a little and she calmed down slightly. But her mind was spinning as she began to realize what Itan was saying just now.

'Mikhail is really the mole that we have been looking for…and he's really with the FBI.' She thought distraughtly. 'How can this be?'

"Now, put down your guns and kick them over." Itan ordered them. "Then stay where you are."

"What are you going to do?" Muraku narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"I'm just going to make my getaway." He smirked. "But you better not follow me or I will kill her." With that, Itan pressed the blade against Vanessa's skin again but with more force this time and she let out a muffled cry of pain.

"Fine, we'll do it!" Muraku yelled before Mikhail could do anything reckless. He dropped his gun and kicked it towards the chair. Mikhail reluctantly did the same.

"Good." Itan nodded and reached down and cut the cable ties at Vanessa's ankles while pocketing his gun. He roughly hauled her up and pulled her through the fire exit behind them.

"Come on." Muraku strode over to the chair and picked up his gun once he was sure that Itan was too far away to hear them.

"What? But he said that he'll kill her if we follow her." Mikhail protested.

"Then we better follow him unseen then." Muraku smiled knowingly and tossed Mikhail his gun. But his smile dropped as soon as it appeared. "Do you know why I chose to rescue Vanessa instead of letting Arata do so?"

Mikhail numbly shook his head so Muraku explained, "I knew that he would let his feelings get the best of his judgement, that's why. But you are the last person I expected to do so."

"I'm sorry." Mikhail shook his head in disappointment. "I just could not stand to see her hurt, especially by him again."

"Again?" Muraku frowned.

Mikhail sighed and rested his head against the wall. "I'm sure that I met Vanessa and that assassin before but I cannot remember where. But it was not until just now did I remember. Before I moved ten years ago, we used to live in the same neighborhood. I know now that the assassin is Itan Kyouji, the former bully of the neighborhood. He used to bully Vanessa a lot back then. I was constantly the one who stepped in and helped her."

"You know his name?" Muraku said in surprise and then smirked. "That would be a huge lead in our investigations. Ironically it came from your childhood memory."

Mikhail gave him a humorous smile at that. Then Muraku's walkie-talkie burst in static as Kageto tried to reach him. He took it out and answered, "Kageto, what's happening?"

 _"I got a lock on someone escaping the fire escape of the warehouse right now."_

"Ok, continue to monitor him. We'll be chasing him now." Muraku answered back and pocketed it. He turned to Mikhail with a smile. "Ready to rescue Vanessa now?"

Mikhail returned the smile and nodded. They ran out of the warehouse from the way they came, intending to find Vanessa and Itan as soon as possible.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

By the time Muraku and Mikhail got out of the warehouse, there were no signs of Itan and Vanessa.

"Kageto, did you see where did our assassin go?" Muraku asked him through the walkie-talkie.

 _"Yeah, just before you got out, he got into a car and drove off. I'm currently tracking down his car."_

"Keep it up. We're coming back now." Muraku clipped the walkie-talkie back on his belt and he and Mikhail ran back to his car. They hopped in and Muraku shot off after Itan's car. "Where is he headed to?"

"I think he's heading towards the housing district at the southern part of town." Kageto muttered.

Mikhail's head shot up in surprise at that. "The southern housing district?"

"You know that place?" Muraku asked although his eyes never left the road.

"That's where we used to live a long time ago but now it's very rundown and barely anyone lives there. It would be the perfect hideout for him." Mikhail said grimly. "I think I know where he is taking her."

* * *

Itan pulled over a very rundown house at the southern housing district and hauled Vanessa out of the car. Her eyes became wide when she recognized the place.

"You remember here, don't you?" Itan asked as though reading her mind. "We used to live in the same neighborhood, along with Mikhail Rourke."

Vanessa's eyes became wide as her suspicions were confirmed. 'He really is that friend whom I remembered.'

Itan pulled her into the house and tossed her on the dusty sofa in the living, pulling off the gag. Vanessa cough as some of the dust entered her throat and glared at him. "What do you want from me now?"

Itan smirked and sat down on her legs, making her yelp and attempt to kick him off but he was too heavy.

"Stop fidgeting." Itan slapped her leg. "You made me tired with bringing you here. I did not ask Seredy to spare your life for nothing."

"What?!" Vanessa looked at him incredulously. "Why would you do that?!"

"I don't know myself." Itan shrugged. "But I know that you will be a valuable asset if I want to take down Mikhail Rourke."

Vanessa jerked her head up in worry. "Why him!?"

"I don't you if you remember this or not, but when we were kids…around ten years ago, we used to be neighbors. But I think you already know that." Itan leaned back against the couch, putting more weight on Vanessa's legs.

Vanessa flinched but somewhere in the back of her mind, some of her childhood memories popped up and she gasped. "You were the bully who always tormented me!"

"What are you talking about?" Itan drawled. "I only wanted to play with you but you always tried to push me aside. In the end, that Rourke kid always steals you away."

"You're lying!" Vanessa yelled at him. "You only wanted to hurt me all those times!"

Itan's eyes flared up and stabbed the switchblade in the couch just inches away from her face. "It is because of that Mikhail Rourke, you refused to acknowledge me as a friend and worst of all, and you see me as the bad guy!"

"That's because you _are_ the bad guy!" Vanessa said furiously, not worrying too much about the blade that was just inches from her face then.

Itan growled and slapped her across the face. "Don't forget who you are talking to! I can kill you if I wanted to. However, you should be thankful that I'm not going to do that for now. You are an asset to me. I know that Mikhail Rourke will come here if he is smart. And if he is foolish enough to try and save you, I'll kill him."

Vanessa shrunk back in fear for she knew that Itan really meant it. "Please don't."

"What? What was that?" Itan cocked his head at her, pretending not to hear her.

"Please don't do anything to him!" Vanessa said a little louder this time.

"And why should I do that? Once I have my mind set on something, I will do anything to accomplish it, no matter how long it takes." Itan smirked.

"And why do you even want to kill Mikhail?" Vanessa demanded. "You are keeping a grudge for nothing against him for the past ten years!"

"It will not be for nothing." Itan's eyes gleamed. "Because of him, I lost everything. I lost my dignity, my pride and worst of all, the girl whom I wanted to befriend."

"Who would even want to befriend you when all you do is hit them on sight?" Vanessa muttered under her breath.

Itan glared at her and was about to say something but the sound of a car driving up stopped him. He went over to the window to peak out and smirked. "Looks like the cavalry has arrived." He went back to the couch and pulled up Vanessa and the switchblade and held it to her neck just as Mikhail burst into the house.

"Take one step further and I will not hesitate to kill her." Itan warned him and pressed the blade forcefully against Vanessa's neck.

"Itan Kyouji, your business is with me so let her go." Mikhail said coldly.

"Not a chance." Itan pulled her away. He then realized that Muraku was not with him and glanced around. "Where is Houjou Muraku?"

"Not with me." Mikhail said truthfully.

Itan glared at him suspiciously and glanced around again. Out of the corner of her eyes, Vanessa spotted Muraku climbing in through the window at the staircase landing on her left and realized that she needed to distract Itan before he spotted him. She stomped on his foot hard with her high heels and just as she expected, Itan howled in pain and loosened his grip on her arm. She jerked her head backwards and slammed her head into his nose this time, causing him to drop the blade and shoveled her away.

"Vanessa!" Mikhail lurched forward to catch her but the sound of a gunshot stopped him in his tracks and Vanessa fell down as her side began to bleed. He shot his head up and saw that Itan had taken out his gun from his pocket and shot at her.

"Now it's your turn." Itan grinned evilly at him but Muraku chose that moment and fired at his gun and then at his arm. Itan cried out in pain and ran out through the back door.

"Come back here!" Muraku called and went out to chase him.

Mikhail watched him go and scrambled over to Vanessa's side. "Vanessa are you alright?"

"Does it look like I'm fine?" Vanessa groaned as Mikhail rolled her to her side and cut of the cable ties on her wrist and examined the wound.

"The bullet did not come out. But I think it is imbedded deep inside." Mikhail finally said and pressed his handkerchief on the bullet wound. "We should send you to the hospital."

"No." Vanessa grasped his wrist. "Just send me to Hikari's place. She can help."

"But…"

"The last time I went to the hospital, it was when my mother died. So I don't want to go back there again. Hikari had medical training a long time ago and she is used to dealing with our wounds, especially bullet wounds. So please, just let her patch me up." Vanessa begged.

"…Fine, once Muraku gets back, we'll pick up Hikari and bring her to my house." Mikhail sighed. Thankfully, it was not long before Muraku came back but without Itan Kyouji.

"No luck, I lost him." Muraku shook his head.

"Then we should pick up Hikari and head over to my house." Mikhail told him as he picked up Vanessa. "She will be able to patch up Vanessa there."

Muraku did not question this but led Mikhail over to his car and they headed over to Hikari's café.

* * *

Hikari nervously paced around her café as she thought of her brother. "I wonder if they're alright."

She glanced out the window and sighed. "Those FBI agents still think that there is a chance that Arata or someone would come. I wonder how is it that they never found out that my basement is connected to the underground tunnels that connect to the beach caves…Then again, I forged the blueprints of the café a long time ago so no one would find out about it."

She sat up straight when she saw Muraku's car driving over and frowned when Muraku got out and spoke to the guarding agents. The guarding agents nodded at what he said and left.

'What's going on?' Hikari thought anxiously and went out, nearly colliding with Muraku. "Muraku, what's going on?"

"I don't have time to explain. Vanessa is injured and she needs medical help. She insisted that you should be the one to patch her up." Muraku said breathlessly.

"Wait, why is Vanessa injured...and why is she with you?" Hikari demanded frantically.

"I'll explain later. Right now it is important that you come with us to help her." Muraku told her firmly. Hikari searched his eyes for any signs of lies and nodded. She ran back to the backroom to gather her supplies and met him at the entrance.

"Where is she?"

"Come on." Muraku took her arm and led her to his car. Once Hikari saw Vanessa inside, she gasped and rushed to her side.

"What happened?"

"Kidnapping, that's what." Vanessa groaned and showed her the bullet wound. "Do you think you can patch this up?"

"I think so but I can't do that here." Hikari frowned.

"We're going to my house now so you can do that there." Mikhail told her.

"Ok, but please hurry." Hikari told them.

Muraku nodded and quickly drove off to Mikhail's house. However, he would subtly glance at Mikhail ever once in a while and saw how concerned he was for Vanessa. He frowned and wondered if the FBI was the right job for Mikhail.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the guild's hideout, Arata glanced up from his documents when his phone rang. He took it out and answered, "Yeah?"

 _"Arata, this is Muraku. I already rescued Vanessa."_

Arata blinked in surprise and checked the caller ID and saw that the number was unknown. "How did you get my phone number?"

 _"Hikari was kind enough to give it to me."_ Muraku said mildly. _"Anyway, I called to let you know that Vanessa is with us now and Hikari is now treating her. How is the progress with locating Seredy's hideout?"_

Arata closed his eyes and said, "We're still looking."

 _"Fine. But remember, Seredy is as slippery as a snake. Also, his top assassin, Itan Kyouji is still on the loose."_

"Thanks for the warning." Arata muttered and hung up. 'At least Vanessa is safe and Hikari is probably better off with Muraku now.' He thought to himself and glanced back at his documents. He had figured that their mysterious clients would be able to help them so he has been trying to find a way to communicate with them but with no avail. Sakuya was down in front of his computer, trying to upgrade his hacking software while Haruki and Hikaru searched through everything they could find on the Kriesler Industries. Yuno had locked herself down in the basement to do some test on some of the guns they managed to snag back at the warehouse.

As he flipped through one folder, something fell out. He frowned and picked it up. It was a disk with a note attached to it.

 _Hope this will help_

 _-KY_

He frowned and realized that he never seen the folder before and opened it. He read through the documents inside it and frowned. 'These are some of records of Seredy Kriesler's purchases of property. But how did this folder get here?'

He looked at the disk again and entered it into his laptop. There was only one recording in it so he played it.

 _"What is your objective by having the Landron Guild do your dirty work for you?"_ Seredy's voice spoke up in the recording.

There was a small laugh and a distinct woman's voice spoke, _"Isn't it obvious? You betrayed me so I want revenge. What better way than to take down your criminal empire so that you will also know how it feels like to lose everything. But all the same, they are not doing dirty work as you put it. I'm merely utilizing their talents."_

 _"I have nothing to do with that accident!"_ Seredy said sharply.

 _"Unfortunately, we already have all the evidence we need and an eyewitness."_ The lady in the recording said slyly.

 _"If you mean that FBI agent whom you saved…"_

 _"No, I mean someone else within your circle. But as for the FBI agent, you should be thankful that she does not remember anything at all. And I have to admit, she is the only good thing that came out of all of this. Now she's a wonderful addition to my family and my brother loves her to bits. But that does not stop me from remembering that you created that explosion just to curb my own line of business."_

 _"Who is it!? Who is that eyewitness?!"_ Seredy demanded.

 _"That's for you to find out yourself."_ There was some rustling and the lady spoke again. _"That was a pleasant talk with you but I'm afraid I must leave. It does take half an hour to get to the airport from here, given the traffic."_

The recording ended abruptly there and Arata's mind was racing. 'How did this recording get here…and who is the person that Seredy is talking to?' He ran the conversation again in his head and remembered what she said in the last part. 'She said that it would take half an hour to get to the airport from wherever she is and there may be heavy traffic in that area.'

With that in mind, he ejected the disk and grab the folder before heading down to give the news to everyone.

* * *

"There, you should be better in a few days' time." Hikari said as she pinned the bandages on Vanessa's side in place. "For now you should rest."

"Thanks a lot." Vanessa winced as she shifted on the bed.

"Don't worry about it." Hikari said as she replaced her equipment in her bag. "I have to give the bullet to Muraku so I'll be back in a while."

"Alright." Vanessa nodded and closed her eyes. She heard the door closed and opened her eyes. There was no way she could just rest after what happened and Mikhail…she was now conflicted on how she should think about him. On one hand, he was the childhood friend who always stood by her and on the other hand, he was a liar who tricked her all this while to get into the guild and was the mole whom they were looking for. A knock on the door brought her out of her thoughts and she glanced up as Mikhail stepped in. He froze when he saw her and looked away and she did the same.

"…Hikari wanted me to check on you." Mikhail finally said.

"I figured." Vanessa muttered under her breath, still not looking at him. She heard the scrapping sounds of a chair pulled up and she flicked her eyes at him as he sat down beside the bed.

"Listen, I never wanted to lie to you." Mikhail began. "I always knew that there was something familiar about you and I always had this urge to look out for you whenever we are on our missions."

"So what is it that you want? To arrest me once you were done?" Vanessa said furiously.

"It would be the last thing on my list if I ever had one." Mikhail shrugged but lowered his head. "I'm sorry that I lied to you but listen, I would never allow you to be arrested if necessary."

"Even so, I'll never forgive you for using me to enter the guild." Vanessa said slowly. "Do you know that the only reason why I thought you stood out of all the people whom we were planning to recruit is that you reminded me so much of the boy whom was my only friend when we were at the old neighborhood. But you are not that boy."

"And you are not the same girl whom I remember protecting when the bully tries to hurt her." Mikhail said softly. "What made you change?"

"A lot of things." Vanessa said after a pause. "My mother's death for one. And my involvement in the guild."

"Why did you even join it in the first place when you knew that it was wrong?"

"Because it is not!" Vanessa said forcefully and Mikhail wondered if she was trying to convince herself, not him. "I wanted to be with Arata and the rest…I didn't want to be alone anymore. And don't think that we stole all the money just so that we could spend it! We always gave what we stole to charities and returned the jewelry that we stole to their rightful owners."

Mikhail blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Why wasn't I told of it?"

"Ask Arata, not me." Vanessa huffed. "But all the same, I admit that there is one thing that you haven't changed about, your sense of justice."

"I guess so. And I think you still have your insecurities like before." Mikhail sighed.

As Vanessa opened her mouth to retort, Hikari opened the door and peaked in. "Mikhail, Muraku needs you. He got a new lead on Seredy Kriesler. I'll take over from here."

"Alright." Mikhail nodded and quickly left.

Hikari then took his seat and grinned at Vanessa. "You feeling better now?"

"A lot worse than before." Vanessa grumbled.

"Oh come on, I know that you do want to forgive him and you just need a little push." Hikari said airily.

"We just talked about our past, that's all." Vanessa sighed.

"Ok, but I know that he hit you hard at your insecurities." Hikari shrugged with a smile. "Your biggest weakness is that you cannot let go of your shortcomings. So you used your role as the seducer in the guild to make yourself feel better."

"I hate it though." Vanessa muttered. "I hate it that I have to bring myself down to that level just to feel better."

"No one's perfect. You need to understand that you have to accept yourself and your shortcomings or you'll never feel better." Hikari adviced softly. "I know that Mikhail does accept you no matter who you are too."

"Well, that's just him." Vanessa sighed and her eyes began to drop.

Hikari saw this and patter her arm. "Get some rest now. I'll be here if you need me."

Vanessa only nodded in reply and drifted off to sleep once she closed her eyes.

* * *

Once Mikhail got down to the living room, Muraku glanced up and spun Kageto's laptop around so that he can see it. He frowned when he saw that it was Arata on Skype on the screen. Arata scowled when he saw him and waiting until he was seated before continuing what he was talking about with Muraku just now.

 _"As I said earlier, we found out that Seredy's hideout is most likely at No. 34, Meadow Hills Residency."_

"How did you manage to find it?" Kageto asked curiously.

 _"I don't know how, but someone had secreted a folder with a list of Seredy's properties into my office along with a disk with an audio recording. Based on the clue that was left in the recording, we searched the perimeter of the airport where it is close to it but has heavy traffic going in. It just so happens that the closest and only property that Seredy has in that area is in Meadow Hills. We managed to confirm it when Sakuya checked the security cameras and found Itan Kyouji entering the residency. Not too long after that, there was a large number of people entering the residency, looking for Seredy."_

"But I thought Seredy could freeze the images of the security cameras so that we won't find out anything." Mikhail frowned.

 _"Sakuya managed to upgrade his hacking software and found a way around whatever that's doing that."_ Arata explained. _"If my hunch is correct, then we better move fast before it's too late."_

"I agree with you." Muraku spoke up. "Alright, we'll meet you outside the Meadow Hills Residency. I'm going to call for backup."

 _"Also, there is one more thing. I'm sending you the recording and the data we uploaded from the terminal at the warehouse right now. You will find the recording interesting though."_ He immediately hung up after that and the data transfer began.

"What did he mean by that?" Mikhail and Kageto frowned.

"It doesn't matter for now." Muraku grabbed his phone and stood up. "Get ready to head out soon. We can take a look at it later. But Kageto, transfer all the data that we got from the warehouse to HQ just in case. I'm going to call them and let them know about this."

"Right." Mikhail and Kageto nodded and started preparing.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

Over at the guild's base, Arata took a deep breath and looked around at his friends. "It's time. We should go. Sakuya, I'm afraid that you have to stay in the car to monitor the situation though."

"I don't mind as long as I don't have to wait here." Sakuya reassured him. "But we should get going now."

"Right." Arata nodded and tossed Hikaru a set of keys. "You take Sakuya and his computers. I'll take Haruki and Yuno."

"Alright." They nodded but as Arata placed his hand on the door knob, his phone beeped to indicate he had a message. He whipped his phone out and frowned when he saw who it was from. "It's from Ban. 'Stay safe. Don't do anything reckless. Me and the gang will be willing to step in again if you need help'." He flipped his phone close and shut his eyes. "Sorry, Ban. This is our matter. We shouldn't drag you guys down with us." He turned to the others and looked at each one of them. "There's still a chance to leave the country if you want and start over again. I won't drag you guys into this. And if you choose to stay, do remember that this is a very big risk and we may not walk out of this."

"We already know that." Hikaru snorted. "I'm beginning to wonder if this is your way of hiding the fact that you're scared."

"As if." Arata rolled his eyes. "I just want to make sure that we're 100% certain or Hikari, Vanessa and the others will never forgive me."

"Don't worry, we're on the same page." Yuno squeezed his hand. "Come on, we don't want to let Muraku up us again, do we?"

"You're right." Arata nodded and took out his racer car keys. "Let's go."

* * *

As soon as Muraku hung up with the person on the line, he slammed his fist on the table in frustration, startling Mikhail and Kageto.

"What's wrong?" Hikari asked from the door, having saw what happened too.

"They won't give us the backup we need." Muraku said through gritted teeth. "They said that due to the fact that we have no solid proof against Seredy and we are collaborating with the Landron Guild, they refused to help us."

"But what about the data that I sent over?" Kageto frowned.

"They said that it does not contain anything useful." He said grimly. "But I doubt that they would have even provided the help we need even if it was useful against Seredy given that we are already collaborating with the guild."

"So we're on our own." Mikhail frowned. "What can we do by ourselves?"

"But you have Arata on your side. Mikhail, you were with them for one month already. You should know what their strength and weaknesses are by now so have confidence in them that they'll be the backup that you need." Hikari pointed out.

Mikhail looked at her in surprise but slowly nodded. "You're right. But still, we're a small group compared to Seredy's men. Also, Itan Kyouji will be there too."

"What is a thieves' biggest strength?" Muraku questioned him.

"…Their stealth." Mikhail said quietly.

"Then use it." Hikari advised him.

* * *

A little while later, Muraku went down to the garage to start up the car but stopped when he saw Hikari there too. "You know, I'm beginning to wonder if you are really not part of the guild."

"Of course not." Hikari sniffed. "I don't want to be involved in their business or it'll affect mine. But if it is what my brother wants to do, then I'm in no position to stop him."

"How long did you know that I'm a FBI agent?" Muraku asked her.

"Since the day you stepped into my café for the first time." Hikari chuckled. "You may not have noticed it, but when you came in, your coat shifted a little and I saw your badge. But even so, I never told anyone, not even my brother, about your job even though they know that you're my frequent customer."

"Then why didn't you?"

"That's because, it's none of my business to interfere with your chase." Hikari said sadly. "I knew a long time ago that there may be a chance that you will have to chase down my brother and friends. But the reason why I didn't say anything is because if I did, then it would mean that I want to help the guild. I'm already indirectly involved with them by helping them treat their wounds and my brother's influence already. But that's where I draw the line."

Muraku stared at her for a moment but smiled after a while. "I see. Well, if we make it out of here, the first thing I would look forward to is your egg and cheese sandwich with coffee."

"Of course." Hikari nodded and was about to head back up to check on Vanessa when she paused. "Did you always come to my café because you suspected about my brother being in the guild?"

Muraku thought about it for a moment and shook his head. "No. I only went there in the first place was because…my sister recommended it."

"Your sister?" Hikari tilted her head. "I didn't know you have a sister."

"Had." Muraku corrected her softly. "She joined the FBI around the same time as I did but died in her first mission."

"I'm sorry." Hikari said sympathetically.

"It's fine. It was around three years ago, so I got over it." Muraku waved it off dismissively. "But anyway, she tried out your food once and badgered me to try it out too. But I didn't think about it until she died."

"Well, I'm glad that you did." Hikari smiled sincerely. "I enjoy talking with you and I admit that I always look forward to your visits." She rubbed her hands together nervously and inched to the door. "I better go check on Vanessa now. But I hope that everyone can get out of this safely."

"Me too." Muraku said quietly when Hikari had gone up.

* * *

About an hour later, Arata and co. arrived at the outskirts of Meadow Hills and gathered over at Hikaru's car to hear the plan.

"Sakuya, bring up the blueprints of Seredy's mansion and the layout of the residency." Arata told him.

Sakuya nodded and showed the two windows on his laptop screen. "The entire residency is surrounded by a wall and the security is very tight. The only entrance is guarded by ten guards and visitors have to go through a standard safety search before entering. Inside, the guards will patrol each area every fifteen minutes. So we need to find a way around them before even thinking of infiltrating the mansion."

"Even that will be hard because Seredy must be expecting us by now." Arata said grimly.

"What about the sewers?" Haruki asked Sakuya.

"They have sensors to detect any lifeforms which are larger than rats and other vermin that you normally see in there." Sakuya said in disgust.

"Then how can we get in?" Hikaru threw his hands up in frustration.

Arata observed the layout of a moment and sighed. "I think we have to wait for Muraku before deciding on that. But on the other hand, we should see if there's a way into the mansion without being seen."

"Alright." Sakuya observed the blueprints and shook his head. "This will be hard. They basically have guards at every entry point and sensors in the vents."

"I think we can handle the sensors so we could go down through the vents." Arata suggested.

"Maybe, but there are some parts which will be hard to go through just so you know. I'm currently mapping out a route where we don't have to go through many tight spots. But you'll have to disable the sensors on your own. I can give you guys a brief window to do that but that's it." Sakuya said as he typed on his laptop furiously.

"That's more than enough." Arata patted his shoulder and turned to the rest. "We'll wait for Muraku to come so that we can plan our entry plan into the residency."

Luckily, they did not need to wait long as Muraku soon pulled up to their side and he and Mikhail stepped out. Arata shook his head at the others and went out alone to greet them.

"You're late." He said bluntly.

"Bad traffic." Muraku rolled his eyes but straightened up. "What's the situation?"

"A heavily guarded residency and an equally heavily guarded mansion." Arata told them as he reached into the car and took Sakuya's laptop from him. "We found our way into the mansion. But we don't know how to get into the residency yet."

Muraku took the laptop and observed the layout and blueprints for a moment. "I cannot use my status in the FBI to get in or Seredy will be alerted. Also, if my superiors hear about this, I'll be fired on the spot."

"Why so?" Arata raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"They don't approve of this." Muraku shook his head disappointedly. "Also, they won't be providing any backup so we're on our own."

"It's probably better this way." Arata shrugged. "But to be honest, I thought about it, and there may be one way we can enter, but you'll probably not like it."

"And what's that?"

"Glide over the wall."


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Danball Senki WARS.**

 **Do review, favourite or follow!** **(Is it really that hard to simply type a few words and hit a button?)**

* * *

Not too long later, all of them except for the techs were gathered at the bottom of a tree in front of the wall surrounding the residency with ropes and a grappling hook. Yuno was now up in the tree to pinpoint a suitable spot to shoot the grappling hook.

 _"Yuno, the last patrol just went by. You have to move fast."_ Sakuya told her.

"Alright." Yuno aimed for one of the roofs peeking out of the wall and fired the grappling hook over. She tugged on the rope to ensure that it was secure and tied it to the tree. One by one, the rest began to climb up the tree.

"We only have thirteen minutes before the next patrol comes by." Arata told them as he secured the harness onto the rope. "Haruki, you go first."

Haruki nodded and held on tight to the harness as he glided over the wall. Hikaru soon followed after him and they ducked against the roof they were on as the next patrol came by while the others held their breaths as they waited for them to pass, hoping that they will not spot the cable. Thankfully, it was too dark by that time for the guards to see anything and they went on.

 _"Fifteen minutes."_ Sakuya told them.

"Yuno and Muraku." Arata gestured for them to go next. They nodded and soon glided over the wall just as the patrol came back but this time, they lingered longer and were searching around for something.

"What's wrong?" Arata frowned and tapped his ear comn. "Sakuya, what's going on down there?"

 _"I think they heard something. You and Mikhail cannot go over yet."_ Sakuya told them worriedly.

"Great." Arata groaned and glared at Mikhail who squirmed under his gaze. "Don't think that I'm forgiving you just because we're teaming up."

"I don't actually expect you to." Mikhail said quietly. "But if it helps, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Arata demanded. "Also, the person you need to apologize to is not me, but Vanessa."

"I already did." Mikhail sighed exasperatedly. "But she refused to accept it."

"No surprising there." Arata muttered. "And to think that I was close to accepting you as our full time teammate. And Vanessa even thought that you were her old friend. In the end, you ended up betraying her trust."

"I know that it was cruel to her but I really do not want her to continue to allow her insecurities and involvement in the guild ruin her life." Mikhail sighed. "Can't you see what the guild is doing to everyone? I know that despite your good intentions for robbing those people. But look at what it gotten you to. You made Seredy your enemy long before you knew it and nearly placed us in danger that night. Also, Hikari was dragged in for questioning despite not knowing anything about your heist and Vanessa was kidnapped by Itan Kyouji."

Arata clenched his fist as he realized that Mikhail was right. His ear comn beeped as Sakuya tried to get through him. He lightly touched it to answer. "Are they gone?"

 _"Yup. Turns out that the noise is a stray cat. You and Mikhail better go now before they even think about coming back."_ Sakuya informed him.

"Right." Arata secured the harness and turned to Mikhail. "You go first."

"No." Mikhail shook his head. "You should. If you go last and by chance get caught by the security guards, then our chances of arresting Seredy will be gone since you are the one who needs to lead the others. Muraku can only do so much."

"Then what about you if you just so happened to be the one getting caught?" Arata raised an eyebrow.

"It would not matter. Take it as an apology from me." Mikhail shook his head and swiftly secured the harness onto Arata's belt and pushed him towards the other side, much to his shock. Once Arata was at the other side, Mikhail secured himself to the harness and glided over. But halfway through, the rope snapped and Mikhail found himself falling.

"Mikhail!" Muraku and Arata gasped. Luckily, Mikhail grabbed the rope in time and managed to stop himself from falling. Haruki and Arata grabbed the other end as it began to slip out of the hook.

"Hang on." Arata grunted as they began to pull him up. Mikhail grunted and climbed up the walls of the house, careful to avoid the windows as he was pulled up. But at that moment, a patrol began to round the corner. Mikhail's eyes became wide and let go of the rope.

"Mikha-!" Yuno was cut off when Arata wrapped a hand around her mouth.

"The patrol is back!" He hissed when he finally understood what Mikhail was trying to tell him and why did he let go of the rope.

The patrol saw Mikhail fall down and ran over. However, Mikhail managed to get back to his feet and ran off.

"Stop!" The guards yelled and chased after him.

"What should we do?" Haruki frowned.

"Don't worry, Mikhail is smart. He'll join us at Seredy's mansion once he gets away from the guards." Muraku said confidently.

"If you say so." Arata sighed reluctantly and they continued going to the mansion by jumping from roof to roof.

* * *

As the guards continued to chase Mikhail, he smirked as he ducked into every nook and cranny to put some distance between the guards. Thanks to the directions that Kageto was giving him, he did not run into the other patrols.

 _"Take a left."_ Kageto instructed him.

Mikhail immediately turned left and soon spotted a low hanging branch of a tree that was leaning out on the road. Glancing behind him, he saw that the guards have yet to catch up with him yet so he grabbed the branch and swung himself up into the tree. The guards soon turned around the corner but when they could not find him, they randomly ran off.

Mikhail sighed in relief and climbed up the tree to get to the roof of the house. "Kageto, I lost the guards. How far am I from the mansion?"

 _"Just two houses away. The rest are waiting for you at the house behind it."_

"Thanks." Mikhail inhaled a deep breath and began to climb over to the said house. But along the way, he paused when he remembered something from his childhood.

* * *

 _Mikhail could only stare as Vanessa climbed up the tree and then up to the roof of her house as Itan Kyouji tried to climb the same tree to get her but was failing miserably._

 _"Get down from there!" He yelled. But Vanessa shook her head frantically as she held on tightly to the branch she used to get to the roof._

 _"Hey, stop scaring her. If you don't, she won't come down and might fall." Mikhail said as he stormed up to him._

 _"What are you going to do about it?" Itan sneered. Mikhail clenched his fist and swung it at Itan who was caught off guard. Itan rubbed the part where Mikhail punched and glared at him. "So that's how it is." With a growl, he lunged at Mikhail and they got into a fight._

 _Up at the roof, Vanessa stared at them, torn between desperation and admiration for Mikhail for standing up to the person who was bullying her for no reason for the past three months since she moved into the neighborhood. Eventually, both boys broke away and Itan was in a worse shape than Mikhail._

 _"You'll regret this one day!" Itan declared and ran off._

 _Mikhail sighed in relief and lifted his head up at Vanessa. "You can come down now. He's gone."_

 _But Vanessa shook her head and clutched the branch tighter. "I can't! It's too high!"_

 _Mikhail bit his lip as he looked around and sighed. "Alright, I'm coming up. Just wait for me."_

 _He climbed up the tree with little difficulty and soon reached the branch which Vanessa was holding on to. He stretched out his hand and grabbed hers. "Come on. I'll hold on to your hand so that you won't fall."_

 _"You promise?" Vanessa whimpered._

 _"Yes." Mikhail nodded and squeezed her hand. Vanessa slowly smiled and eased her grip on the branch. They gradually maneuvered down the tree with Mikhail's hand never letting go of Vanessa's._

 _"We made it." Vanessa sighed in relief when their foot touched the ground and let go of Mikhail's hand as she flopped down on the grass. "Thanks a lot for getting me down."_

 _"You're welcome." Mikhail said as he sat down beside her._

 _"Are you new around here?" She asked curiously._

 _"Yeah." Mikhail nodded shyly. "I just moved here yesterday."_

 _"I moved here not too long ago too." Vanessa grinned. "Do you want to be my friend?"_

 _Mikhail stared at her stun for a moment before breaking out into a grin and nodded. "Sure."_

* * *

'That was the first time I met her and stood up for her.' Mikhail thought silently. 'But now, I don't know whether we are still friends or not. But I guess it's my fault for not being honest with her in the first place. And the both of us had changed a lot since the last time we saw each other back at the old neighborhood.'

He shook his head to clear it when he spotted the others and carefully climbed over. "Guys!"

Muraku jerked his head up and sighed in relief. "You're back."

"Sorry about that just now. How are we going to get in?" Mikhail asked as he got closer.

"Vents." Arata simply said.

Muraku and Mikhail exchanged uneasy glances at the idea. But neither of the disagreed with it since they had no better idea to get inside.

* * *

Inside the mansion, Seredy smirked as he watched the guild and the FBI agents getting ready to infiltrate the mansion through the neighbor's CCTV. He turned to Itan and told him, "Get everyone ready. They're coming."

"Of course. But if you don't mind me asking, how did they find this place?" Itan frowned.

"I have no idea." Seredy said with narrowed eyes. 'She could not have told them, could she? If she did, then Houjou Muraku will definitely find out the truth behind the mission that supposedly killed his sister. And if he does, he'll be more determined to bring me in and will not stop chasing me even if I escape today. The only way would be for me to get rid of him right here and right now.'

"By the way, what should we do about them?" Itan asked, gesturing at the screen where the group was unscrewing the vents.

"Let them come." Seredy shrugged, but inwardly wondering as to what would happen that night.

* * *

 **Please, do review. I only got one for this fic and I don't know if I really want to continue it or not!**


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